THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

SANTA  BARBARA 

COLLEGE 

PRESENTED   BY 


Marion  0.   Hooker 


HAVE  LOCK      ELLIS 


THE   TASK   OF   SOCIAL   HYGIENE 


THE  TASK  OF 
SOCIAL  HYGIENE 


BY 

HAVELOGK  ELLIS 

AUTHOR  OF 
THE  SOUL  OF  SPAIN  "  ;  "  THE  WORLD  OF  DREAMS  "  ;  ETC. 


BOSTON   AND   NEW   YORK 

HOUGHTON   MIFFLIN   COMPANY 

1912 


7530^ 


J 


PREFACE 

THE  study  of  social  hygiene  means  the  study  of 
those  things  which  concern  the  welfare  of  human 
beings  living  in  societies.  There  can,  therefore, 
be  no  study  more  widely  important  or  more  generally  in- 
teresting. I  fear,  however,  that  by  many  persons  social 
hygiene  is  vaguely  regarded  either  as  a  mere  extension 
of  sanitary  science,  or  else  as  an  effort  to  set  up  an  in- 
tolerable bureaucracy  to  oversee  every  action  of  our 
lives,  and  perhaps  even  to  breed  us  as  cattle  are  bred. 

That  is  certainly  not  the  point  of  view  from  which  this 
book  has  been  written.  Plato  and  Rabelais,  Campanella 
and  More,  have  been  among  those  who  announced 
the  principles  of  social  hygiene  here  set  forth.  There 
must  be  a  social  order,  all  these  great  pioneers  recognized, 
but  the  health  of  society,  like  the  health  of  the  body, 
is  marked  by  expansion  as  much  as  by  restriction,  and 
the  striving  for  order  is  only  justified  because  without 
order  there  can  be  no  freedom.  If  it  were  not  the  mission 
of  social  hygiene  to  bring  a  new  joy  and  a  new  freedom 
into  life  I  should  not  have  concerned  myself  with  the 
writing  of  this  book. 

When  we  thus  contemplate  the  process  of  social 
hygiene,  we  are  no  longer  in  danger  of  looking  upon  it  as 
an   artificial   interference   with   Nature.      It   is   in   the 


vi  THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

Book  of  Nature,  as  Campanella  put  it,  that  the  laws  of 
life  and  of  government  are  to  be  read.  Or,  as  Quesnel 
said  two  centuries  ago,  more  precisely  for  our  present 
purpose,  "  Nature  is  universal  hygiene."  All  animals  are 
scrupulous  in  hygiene  ;  the  elaboration  of  hygiene  moves 
pari  passu  with  the  rank  of  a  species  in  intelligence. 
Even  the  cockroach,  which  lives  on  what  we  call  filth, 
spends  the  greater  part  of  its  time  in  the  cultivation  of 
personal  cleanliness.  And  all  social  hygiene,  in  its  fullest 
sense,  is  but  an  increasingly  complex  and  extended 
method  of  purification — the  purification  of  the  conditions 
of  life  by  sound  legislation,  the  purification  of  our  own 
minds  by  better  knowledge,  the  purification  of  our 
hearts  by  a  growing  sense  of  responsibility,  the  purifica- 
tion of  the  race  itself  by  an  enlightened  eugenics,  con- 
sciously aiding  Nature  in  her  manifest  effort  to  embody 
new  ideals  of  life.  It  was  not  Man,  but  Nature,  who 
realized  the  daring  and  splendid  idea — risky  as  it  was — of 
placing  the  higher  anthropoids  on  their  hind  limbs 
and  so  liberating  their  fore-limbs  in  the  service  of  their 
nimble  and  aspiring  brains.  We  may  humbly  follow 
in  the  same  path,  liberating  latent  forces  of  life  and 
suppressing  those  which  no  longer  serve  the  present  ends 
of  life.  For,  as  Shakespeare  said,  when  in  The  Winter's 
Tale  he  set  forth  a  luminous  philosophy  of  social  hygiene 
and  applied  it  to  eugenics, 

"  Nature  is  made  better  by  no  mean 
But  Nature  makes  that  mean  .  .  . 

This  is  an  art 
Which  does  mend  Nature,  change  it  rather,  but 
The  art  itself  is  Nature." 


PREFACE  vii 

In  whatever  way  it  may  be  understood,  however, 
social  hygiene  is  now  very  much  to  the  front  of  people's 
minds.  The  present  volume,  I  wish  to  make  clear, 
has  not  been  hastily  written  to  meet  any  real  or  supposed 
demand.  It  has  slowly  grown  during  a  period  of  nearly 
twenty-five  years,  and  it  expresses  an  attitude  which  is 
implicit  or  explicit  in  the  whole  of  my  work.  By  some 
readers,  doubtless,  it  will  be  seen  to  constitute  an  exten- 
sion in  various  directions  of  the  arguments  developed  in 
the  larger  work  on  "Sex  in  Relation  to  Society,"  which 
is  the  final  volume  of  my  Studies  in  the  Psychology  of 
Sex.  The  book  I  now  bring  forward  may,  however, 
be  more  properly  regarded  as  a  presentation  of  the  wider 
scheme  of  social  reform  out  of  which  the  more  special 
sex  studies  have  developed.  We  are  faced  to-day  by  the 
need  for  vast  and  complex  changes  in  social  organization. 
In  these  changes  the  welfare  of  individuals  and  the 
welfare  of  communities  are  alike  concerned.  Moreover, 
they  are  matters  which  are  not  confined  to  the  affairs 
of  this  nation  or  of  that  nation,  but  of  the  whole  family 
of  nations  participating  in  the  fraternity  of  modern 
progress. 

The  word  "  progress,"  indeed,  which  falls  so  easily 
from  our  lips  is  not  a  word  which  any  serious  writer 
should  use  without  precaution.  The  conception  of 
"  progress  "  is  a  useful  conception  in  so  far  as  it  binds 
together  those  who  are  working  for  common  ends,  and 
stimulates  that  perpetual  slight  movement  in  which  life 
consists.  But  there  is  no  general  progress  in  Nature, 
nor  any  unqualified  progress  ;   that  is  to  say,  that  there 


viii         THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

is  no  progress  for  all  groups  along  the  line,  and  that  even 
those  groups  which  progress  pay  the  price  of  their 
progress.  It  was  so  even  when  our  anthropoid  ancestors 
rose  to  the  erect  position  ;  that  was  "  progress,"  and  it 
gained  us  the  use  of  hands.  But  it  lost  us  our  tails, 
and  much  else  that  is  more  regrettable  than  we  are 
always  able  to  realize.  There  is  no  general  and  ever- 
increasing  evolution  towards  perfection.  "  Existence 
is  realized  in  its  perfection  under  whatever  aspect  it  is 
manifested,"  says  Jules  de  Gaultier.  Or,  as  Whitman 
put  it,  "  There  will  never  be  any  more  perfection  than 
there  is  now."  We  cannot  expect  an  increased  power  of 
growth  and  realization  in  existence,  as  a  whole,  leading 
to  any  general  perfection ;  we  can  only  expect  to  see 
the  triumph  of  individuals,  or  of  groups  of  individuals, 
carrying  out  their  own  conceptions  along  special  lines, 
every  perfection  so  attained  involving,  on  its  reverse  side, 
the  acquirement  of  an  imperfection.  It  is  in  this  sense, 
and  in  this  sense  only,  that  progress  is  possible.  We  need 
not  fear  that  we  shall  ever  achieve  the  stagnant  im- 
mobility of  a  general  perfection. 

The  problems  of  progress  we  are  here  concerned  with 
are  such  as  the  civilized  world,  as  represented  by  some 
of  its  foremost  individuals  or  groups  of  individuals,  is 
just  now  waking  up  to  grapple  with.  No  doubt  other 
problems  might  be  added,  and  the  addition  give  a  greater 
semblance  of  completion  to  this  book.  I  have  selected 
those  which  seem  to  me  very  essential,  very  fundamental. 
The  questions  of  social  hygiene,  as  here  understood,  go 
to  the  heart  of  life.     It  is  the  task  of  this  hygiene  not 


PREFACE  ix 

only  to  make  sewers,  but  to  re-make  love,  and  to  do  both 
in  the  same  large  spirit  of  human  fellowship,  to  ensure 
finer  individual  development  and  a  larger  social  organiza- 
tion. At  the  one  end  social  hygiene  may  be  regarded 
as  simply  the  extension  of  an  elementary  sanitary  code  ; 
at  the  other  end  it  seems  to  some  to  have  in  it  the  glorious 
freedom  of  a  new  religion.  The  majority  of  people, 
probably,  will  be  content  to  admit  that  we  have  here  a 
scheme  of  serious  social  reform  which  every  man  and 
woman  will  soon  be  called  upon  to  take  some  share  in. 

Havelock  Ellis. 


PAGE 


CONTENTS 


I. — Introduction 

The  aim  of  Social  Hygiene — Social  Reform — The  Rise  of  Social 
Reform  out  of  English  Industrialism — The  Four  Stages  of  Social 
Reform — (i)  The  Stage  of  Sanitation — (2)  Factory  Legislation — 
(3)  The  Extension  of  the  Scope  of  Education — (4)  Puericulture — 
The  Scientific  Evolution  corresponding  to  these  Stages — Social 
Reform  only  Touched  the  Conditions  of  Life — Yet  Social  Re- 
form Remains  highly  Necessary — The  Question  of  Infantile 
Mortality  and  the  Quality  of  the  Race — The  Better  Organiza- 
tion of  Life  Involved  by  Social  Hygiene — Its  Insistence  on  the 
Quality  rather  than  on  the  Conditions  of  Life — The  Control  of 
Reproduction — The  Fall  of  the  Birth-rate  in  Relation  to  the 
Quality  of  the  Population — The  Rejuvenation  of  a  Society — 
The  Influence  of  Culture  and  Refinement  on  a  Race — Eugenics 
— The  Regeneration  of  the  Race — The  Problem  of  Feeble- 
mindedness— The  Methods  of  Eugenics — Some  of  the  Problems 
which  Face  us  .  .  .  .  .         .  1 

II. — The  Changing  Status  of  Women 

The  Origin  of  the  Woman  Movement  — Mary  Wollstonecraft  — 
George  Sand — Robert  Owen — William  Thompson — John  Stuart 
Mill — The  Modern  Growth  of  Social  Cohesion— The  Growth  of 
Industrialism — Its  Influence  in  Woman's  Sphere  of  Work — The 
Education  of  Women— Co-education— The  Woman  Question 
and  Sexual  Selection — Significance  of  Economic  Independence 
—The  State  Regulation  of  Marriage— The  Future  of  Marriage 
— Wilhelm  von  Humboldt— Social  Equality  of  Women— The 
Reproduction  of  the  Race  as  a  Function  of  Society — Women 
and  the  Future  of  Civilization     .  .  ...       49 

III. — The  New  Aspect  of  the  Woman's  Movement 

Eighteenth-Century  France — Pioneers  of  the  Woman's  Movement 
—The  Growth  of  the  Woman's  Suffrage  Movement— The  Mili- 

xi 


xii  THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

PAGE 

tant  Activities  of  the  Suffragettes — Their  Services  and  Dis- 
services to  the  Cause — Advantages  of  Women's  Suffrage — Sex 
Questions  in  Germany — Bebel — The  Woman's  Rights  Move- 
ment in  Germany — The  Development  of  Sexual  Science  in  Ger^ 
many — The  Movement  for  the  Protection  of  Motherhood — Ellen 
Key — The  Question  of  Illegitimacy — Eugenics— Women  as  Law- 
makers in  the  Home      .  .  .  ...       67 

IV. — The  Emancipation  of  Women  in  Relation 
to  Romantic   Love 

The  Absence  of  Romantic  Love  in  Classic  Civilization— Marriage  as 
a  Duty — The  Rise  of  Romantic  Love  in  the  Roman  Empire— 
The  Influence  of  Christianity— The  Attitude  of  Chivalry— The 
Troubadours— The  Courts  of  Love— The  Influence  of  the  Re- 
naissance— Conventional  Chivalry  and  Modern  Civilization — 
The  Woman  Movement— The  Modern  Woman's  Equality  of 
Rights  and  Responsibilities  excludes  Chivalry— New  Forms  of 
Romantic  Love  still  remain  possible — Love  as  the  Inspiration 
of  Social  Hygiene  .  .  •  •  •     "3 

V. — The  Significance  of  a  Falling  Birth-rate 

The  Fall  of  the  Birth-rate  in  Europe  generally— In  England— In 
Germany— In  the  United  States— In  Canada— In  Australasia 
—"Crude"  Birth-rate  and  "Corrected"  Birth-rate— The  Con- 
nection between  High  Birth-rate  and  High  Death-rate  — 
"  Natural  Increase  "  measured  by  Excess  of  Births  over  Deaths 
—The  Measure  of  National  Well-being— The  Example  of 
Russia— Japan— China— The  Necessity  of  viewing  the  Question 
from  a  wide  Standpoint— The  Prevalence  of  Neo-Malthusian 
Methods— Influence  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church— Other 
Influences  lowering  the  Birth-rate— Influence  of  Postponement 
of  Marriage— Relation  of  the  Birth-rate  to  Commercial  and 
Industrial  Activity— Illustrated  by  Russia,  Hungary,  and  Aus- 
tralia—The Relation  of  Prosperity  to  Fertility— The  Social 
Capillarity  Theory— Divergence  of  the  Birth-rate  and  the  Mar- 
riage-rate—Marriage-rate  and  the  Movement  of  Prices— Pros- 
perity and  Civilization— Fertility  among  Savages— The  lesser 
fertility  of  Urban  Populations— Effect  of  Urbanization  on  Physi- 
cal Development— Why  Prosperity  fails  permanently  to  increase 
Fertility — Prosperity  creates  Restraints  on  Fertility — The  pro- 
cess of  Civilization  involves  Decreased  Fertility— In  this  Respect 
it  is  a  Continuation  of  Zoological  Evolution— Large  Families  as 


CONTENTS  xiii 

a  Stigma  of  Degeneration — The  Decreased  Fertility  of  Civiliza-    page 

tion  a  General  Historical  Fact — The  Ideals  of  Civilization  to-day 

— The  East  and  the  West  .  .  .  .     134 

VI. — Eugenics  and  Love 

Eugenics  and  the  Decline  of  the  Birth-rate — Quantity  and  Quality 
in  the  Production  of  Children — Eugenic  Sexual  Selection — The 
Value  of  Pedigrees — Their  Scientific  Significance — The  System- 
atic Record  of  Personal  Data — The  Proposal  for  Eugenic  Cer- 
tificates— St.  Valentine's  Day  and  Sexual  Selection — Love  and 
Reason — Love  Ruled  by  Natural  Law — Eugenic  Selection  not 
opposed  to  Love — No  Need  for  Legal  Compulsion — Medicine  in 
Relation  to  Marriage    .  .  .  .  .         .      193 

VII. — Religion  and  the  Child 

Religious  Education  in  Relation  to  Social  Hygiene  and  to  Psy- 
chology— The  Psychology  of  the  Child — The  Contents  of 
Children's  Minds — The  Imagination  of  Children — How  far  may 
Religion  be  assimilated  by  Children  ?— Unfortunate  Results  of 
Early  Religious  Instruction— Puberty  the  Age  for  Religious 
Education — Religion  as  an  Initiation  into  a  Mystery — Initiation 
among  Savages — The  Christian  Sacraments— The  Modern 
Tendency  as  regards  Religious  Instruction — Its  Advantages — 
Children  and  Fairy  Tales— The  Bible  of  Childhood— Moral 
Training  .  .  .  .  .  .         .     217 

VIII. — The  Problem  of  Sexual  Hygiene 

The  New  Movement  for  giving  Sexual  Instruction  to  Children — 
The  Need  of  such  a  Movement — Contradictions  involved  by  the 
Ancient  Policy  of  Silence— Errors  of  the  New  Policy— The  Need 
of  Teaching  the  Teacher— The  Need  of  Training  the  Parents 
—And  of  Scientifically  equipping  the  Physician— Sexual  Hygiene 
and  Society— The  far-reaching  Effects  of  Sexual  Hygiene  .     244 

IX. — Immorality  and  the  Law 

Social  Hygiene  and  Legal  Compulsion— The  Binding  Force  of 
Custom  among  Savages— The  Dissolving  Influence  of  Civiliza- 
tion—The Distinction  between  Immorality  and  Criminality- 
Adultery  as  a  Crime  — The  Tests  of  Criminality  — National 
Differences  in  laying  down  the  Boundary  between  Criminal 
and  Immoral  Acts— France— Germany— England— The  United 


xiv         THE   TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

PAGE 

States — Police  Administration — Police  Methods  in  the  United 
States — National  Differences  in  the  Regulation  of  the  Trade  in 
Alcohol — Prohibition  in  the  United  States — Origin  of  the  Ameri- 
can Method  of  Dealing  with  Immorality — Russia — Historical 
Fluctuations  in  Methods  of  Dealing  with  Immorality  and  Pros- 
titution— Homosexuality — Holland — The  Ageof  Consent — Moral 
Legislation  in  England — In  the  United  States — The  Raines  Law 
— America  Attempts  to  Suppress  Prostitution — Their  Futility 
— German  Methods  of  Regulating  Prostitution — The  Sound 
Method  of  Approaching  Immorality — Training  in  Sexual 
Hygiene — Education  in  Personal  and  Social  Responsibility         .     258 

X. — The  War  against  War 

Why  the  Problem  of  War  is  specially  urgent  To-day — The  Bene- 
ficial Effects  of  War  in  Barbarous  Ages — Civilization  renders 
the  Ultimate  Disappearance  of  War  Inevitable — The  Introduc- 
tion of  Law  in  disputes  between  Individuals  involves  the  Intro- 
duction of  Law  in  disputes  between  Nations — But  there  must  be 
Force  behind  Law — Henry  IV's  Attempt  to  Confederate  Europe 
— Every  International  Tribunal  of  Arbitration  must  be  able  to 
Enforce  its  decisions — The  Influences  making  for  the  Abolition 
of  Warfare — (1)  Growth  of  International  Opinion — (2)  Inter- 
national Financial  Development — (3)  The  Decreasing  Pressure 
of  Population — (4)  The  Natural  Exhaustion  of  the  Warlike  Spirit 
— (5)  The  Spread  of  Anti-military  Doctrines — (6)  The  Over- 
growth of  Armaments — (7)  The  Dominance  of  Social  Reform  — 
War  Incompatible  with  an  Advanced  Civilization — Nations  as 
Trustees  for  Humanity — The  Impossibility  of  Disarmament — 
The  Necessity  of  Force  to  ensure  Peace — The  Federated  State 
of  the  Future — The  Decay  of  War  still  leaves  the  Possibilities 
of  Daring  and  Heroism  .  .  .  .         .     311 

XI. — The  Problem  of  an  International  Language 

Early  Attempts  to  construct  an  International  Language — The 
Urgent  Need  of  an  Auxiliary  Language  To-day — Volapuk — 
The  Claims  of  Spanish— Latin— The  Claims  of  English— Its  Dis- 
advantages— The  Claims  of  French— Its  Disadvantages — The 
Modern  Growth  of  National  Feeling  opposed  to  Selection  of  a 
Natural  Language — Advantages  of  an  Artificial  Language — 
Demands  it  must  Fulfil— Esperanto — Its  Threatened  Disruption 
— The  International  Association  for  the  Adoption  of  an  Auxiliary 
International  Language — The  First  Step  to  Take  .  .         .     349 


CONTENTS  xv 

XII. — Individualism  and  Socialism 

PAGE 

Social  Hygiene  in  Relation  to  the  Alleged  Opposition  between 
Socialism  and  Individualism — The  Two  Parties  in  Politics — 
The  Relation  of  Conservatism  and  Radicalism  to  Socialism 
and  Individualism — The  Basis  of  Socialism — The  Basis  of  In- 
dividualism— The  seeming  Opposition  between  Socialism  and 
Individualism  merely  a  Division  of  Labour — Both  Socialism  and 
Individualism  equally  Necessary — Not  only  Necessary,  but 
Indispensable  to  each  other — The  Conflict  between  the  Ad- 
vocates of  Environment  and  Heredity — A  New  Embodiment 
of  the  supposed  Conflict  between  Socialism  and  Individualism 
— The  place  of  Eugenics — Social  Hygiene  ultimately  one  with 
the  Hygiene  of  the  Soul — The  Function  of  Utopias  .         .     381 

Index  .  .  .  .  .  ...    407 


THE  TASK 
OF  SOCIAL  HYGIENE 


INTRODUCTION 

The  Aim  of  Social  Hygiene — Social  Reform — The  Rise  of  Social  Reform 
out  of  English  Industrialism — The  Four  Stages  of  Social  Reform — 
(i)  The  Stage  of  Sanitation — (2)  Factory  Legislation — (3)  The  Ex- 
tension of  the  Scope  of  Education — (4)  Puericulture — The  Scientific 
Evolution  corresponding  to  these  Stages — Social  Reform  only 
Touched  the  Conditions  of  Life — Yet  Social  Reform  Remains  highly 
Necessary — The  Question  of  Infantile  Mortality  and  the  Quality  of  the 
Race — The  Better  Organization  of  Life  Involved  by  Social  Hygiene 
— Its  Insistence  on  the  Quality  rather  than  on  the  Conditions  of 
Life — The  Control  of  Reproduction — The  Fall  of  the  Birth-rate  in 
Relation  to  the  Quality  of  the  Population — The  Rejuvenation  of 
a  Society — The  Influence  of  Culture  and  Refinement  on  a  Race — 
Eugenics — The  Regeneration  of  the  Race — The  Problem  of  Feeble- 
mindedness— The  Methods  of  Eugenics — Some  of  the  Problems 
which  Face  us. 

SOCIAL  Hygiene,  as  it  will  be  here  understood, 
may  be  said  to  be  a  development,  and  even  a 
transformation,  of  what  was  formerly  known  as 
Social  Reform.  In  that  transformation  it  has  under- 
gone two  fundamental  changes.  In  the  first  place,  it  is 
no  longer  merely  an  attempt  to  deal  with  the  conditions 
under  which  life  is  lived,  seeking  to  treat  bad  condi- 
tions as  they  occur,  without  going  to  their  source,  but 

B  I 


2  THE  TASK  OF  SOCIAL  HYGIENE 

it  aims  at  prevention.  It  ceases  to  be  simply  a  re- 
forming of  forms,  and  approaches  in  a  comprehensive 
manner  not  only  the  conditions  of  life,  but  life  itself.  In 
the  second  place,  its  method  is  no  longer  haphazard, 
but  organized  and  systematic,  being  based  on  a  grow- 
ing knowledge  of  those  biological  sciences  which  were 
scarcely  in  their  infancy  when  the  era  of  social  reform 
began.  Thus  social  hygiene  is  at  once  more  radical  and 
more  scientific  than  the  old  conception  of  social  reform. 
It  is  the  inevitable  method  by  which  at  a  certain  stage 
civilization  is  compelled  to  continue  its  own  course,  and 
to  preserve,  perhaps  to  elevate,  the  race. 

The  era  of  social  reform  followed  on  the  rise  of  modern 
industrialism,  and,  no  doubt  largely  on  this  account, 
although  an  international  movement,  it  first  became 
definite  and  self-conscious  in  England.  There  were 
perhaps  other  reasons  why  it  should  have  been  in  the 
first  place  specially  prominent  in  England.  When  at 
the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century,  Muralt,  a  highly 
intelligent  Swiss  gentleman,  visited  England,  and  wrote 
his  by  no  means  unsympathetic  Lettres  sur  les  Anglais, 
he  was  struck  by  a  curious  contradiction  in  the  English 
character.  They  are  a  good-natured  people,  he  ob- 
served, very  rich,  so  well-nourished  that  sometimes 
they  die  of  obesity,  and  they  detest  cruelty  so  much 
that  by  royal  proclamation  it  is  ordained  that  the  fish 
and  the  ducks  of  the  ponds  should  be  duly  and  properly 
fed.  Yet  he  found  that  this  good-natured,  rich, 
cruelty-hating  nation  systematically  allowed  the  prisoners 
in  their  gaols  to  die  of  starvation.     "  The  great  cruelty 


INTRODUCTION  3 

of  the  English,"  Muralt  remarks,  "  lies  in  permitting 
evil  rather  than  in  doing  it."  1  The  root  of  the  apparent 
contradiction  lay  clearly  in  a  somewhat  excessive  in- 
dependence and  devotion  to  liberty.  We  give  a  man 
full  liberty,  they  seem  to  have  said,  to  work,  to  become 
rich,  to  grow  fat.  But  if  he  will  not  work,  let  him  starve. 
In  that  point  of  view  there  were  involved  certain  fallacies, 
which  became  clearer  during  the  course  of  social  evolution. 
It  was  obvious,  indeed,  that  such  an  attitude,  while 
highly  favourable  to  individual  vigour  and  independence, 
and  not  incompatible  with  fairly  healthy  social  life 
under  the  conditions  which  prevailed  at  the  time,  be- 
came disastrous  in  the  era  of  industrialism.  The  con- 
ditions of  industrial  life  tore  up  the  individual  from  the 
roots  by  which  he  normally  received  strength,  and 
crowded  the  workers  together  in  masses,  thus  generating 
a  confusion  which  no  individual  activity  could  grapple 
with.  So  it  was  that  the  very  spirit  which,  under  the 
earlier  conditions,  made  for  good  now  made  for  evil. 
To  stand  by  and  applaud  the  efforts  of  the  individual 
who  was  perhaps  slowly  sinking  deeper  and  deeper  into 
a  miry  slough  of  degradation  began  to  seem  an  even 
diabolical  attitude.  The  maxim  of  laissez-faire,  which 
had  once  stood  for  the  whole  unfettered  action  of  natural 
activities  in  life,  began  to  be  viewed  with  horror  and 
contempt.  It  was  realized  that  there  must  be  an  in- 
telligent superintendence  of  social  conditions,  humane 
regulation,  systematic  organization.  The  very  intensity 
of  the  evils  which  the  English  spirit  produced  led  to 

1  Muralt,  Lettres  sur  les  Anglais.    Lettre  V. 


4  THE  TASK  OF  SOCIAL  HYGIENE 

a  reaction  by  which  that  spirit,  while  doubtless  remaining 
the  same  at  heart,  took  on  a  different  form,  and  mani- 
fested its  energy  in  a  new  direction. 

The  modern  industrial  era,  replacing  domestic  in- 
dustry by  collective  work  carried  out  by  "  hands  '"  in 
factories,  began  in  the  eighteenth  century.  The  era 
of  social  reform  was  delayed  until  the  second  quarter 
of  the  nineteenth  century.  It  has  proceeded  by  four 
successively  progressive  stages,  each  stage  supplementing, 
rather  than  supplanting,  the  stage  that  preceded  it. 
In  1842  Sir  Edwin  Chadwick  wrote  an  official  Report 
on  the  Sanitary  Condition  of  the  Labouring  Population 
of  Great  Britain,  in  which  was  clearly  presented  for  the 
first  time  a  vivid,  comprehensive,  and  authoritative 
picture  of  the  incredibly  filthy  conditions  under  which 
the  English  labouring  classes  lived.  The  times  were 
ripe  for  this  Report.  It  attracted  public  attention, 
and  exerted  an  important  influence.  Its  appearance 
marks  the  first  stage  of  social  reform,  which  was  mainly 
a  sanitary  effort  to  clear  away  the  gross  filth  from  our 
cities,  to  look  after  the  cleansing,  lighting,  and  policing 
of  the  streets,  to  create  a  drainage  system,  to  improve 
dwellings,  and  in  these  ways  to  combat  disease  and  to 
lower  the  very  high  death-rate. 

At  an  early  stage,  however,  it  began  to  be  seen  that 
this  process  of  sanitation,  necessary  as  it  had  become, 
was  far  too  crude  and  elementary  to  achieve  the  ends 
sought.  It  was  not  enough  to  improve  the  streets, 
or  even  to  regulate  the  building  of  dwellings.  It  was 
clearly    necessary    to    regulate    also    the    conditions    of 


INTRODUCTION  5 

work  of  the  people  who  lived  in  those  streets  and  dwellings. 
Thus  it  was  that  the  scheme  of  factory  legislation  was 
initiated.  Rules  were  made  as  to  the  hours  of  labour, 
more  especially  as  regards  women  and  children,  for  whom, 
moreover,  certain  specially  dangerous  or  unhealthy 
occupations  were  forbidden,  and  an  increasingly  large 
number  of  avocations  were  brought  under  Government 
inspection.  This  second  stage  of  social  reform  en- 
countered a  much  more  strenuous  opposition  than 
the  first  stage.  The  regulation  of  the  order  and  cleanli- 
ness of  the  streets  was  obviously  necessary,  and  it  had 
indeed  been  more  or  less  enforced  even  in  medieval 
times  ;  *  but  the  regulation  of  the  conditions  of  work 
in  the  interests  of  the  worker  was  a  more  novel  proceeding, 
and  it  appeared  to  clash  both  with  the  interests  of  the 
employers  and  the  ancient  principles  of  English  freedom 
and   independence,    behind   which   the   employers   con- 

1  In  the  reign  of  Richard  II  (1388)  an  Act  was  passed  for  "  the 
punishment  of  those  which  cause  corruption  near  a  city  or  great  town 
to  corrupt  the  air."  A  century  later  (in  Henry  VII's  time)  an  Act  was 
passed  to  prevent  butchers  killing  beasts  in  walled  towns,  the  preamble 
to  this  Act  declaring  that  no  noble  town  in  Christendom  should  contain 
slaughter-houses  lest  sickness  be  thus  engendered.  In  Charles  II's 
time,  after  the  great  fire  of  London,  the  law  provided  for  the  better 
paving  and  cleansing  of  the  streets  and  sewers.  It  was,  however,  in 
Italy,  as  Weyl  points  out  (Geschichte  der  Sozialen  Hygiene  im  Mittelalter, 
at  a  meeting  of  the  Gesellschaft  fur  Soziale  Medizin,  May  25,  1905), 
that  the  modern  movement  of  organized  sanitation  began.  In  the 
thirteenth  century  the  great  Italian  cities  (like  Florence  and  Pistoja) 
possessed  Codici  Sanitarii ;  but  they  were  not  carried  out,  and  when 
the  Black  Death  reached  Florence  in  1348,  it  found  the  city  altogether 
unprepared.  It  was  Venice  which,  in  the  same  year,  first  initiated 
vigorous  State  sanitation.  Disinfection  was  first  ordained  by  Gian 
Visconti,  in  Milan,  in  1399.  The  first  quarantine  station  of  which  we 
hear  was  established  in  Venice  in  1403. 


6  THE  TASK  OF  SOCIAL  HYGIENE 

sequently  sheltered  themselves.  The  early  attempts 
to  legislate  on  these  lines  were  thus  fruitless.  It  was 
not  until  a  distinguished  aristocratic  philanthropist 
of  great  influence,  the  seventh  Earl  of  Shaftesbury, 
took  up  the  question,  that  factory  legislation  began  to 
be  accepted.  It  continues  to  develop  even  to-day, 
ever  enlarging  the  sphere  of  its  action,  and  now  meeting 
with  no  opposition.  But,  in  England,  at  all  events, 
its  acceptance  marks  a  memorable  stage  in  the  growth 
of  the  national  spirit.  It  was  no  longer  easy  and  natural 
for  the  Englishmen  to  look  on  at  suffering  without 
interference.  It  began  to  be  recognized  that  it  was 
perfectly  legitimate,  and  even  necessary,  to  put  a  curb 
on  the  freedom  and  independence  which  involved  suffering 
to  others. 

But  as  the  era  of  factory  legislation  became  established, 
a  further  advance  was  seen  to  be  necessary.  Factory 
legislation  had  forbidden  the  child  to  work.  But  the 
duty  of  the  community  towards  the  child,  the  citizen  of 
the  future,  was  evidently  by  no  means  covered  by  this 
purely  negative  step.  The  child  must  be  prepared  to 
take  his  future  part  in  life,  in  the  first  place  by  education. 
The  nationalization  of  education  in  England  dates  from 
1870.  But  during  the  subsequent  half  century  "  educa- 
tion "  has  come  to  mean  much  more  than  mere  instruction; 
it  now  covers  a  certain  amount  of  provision  for  meals  when 
necessary,  the  enforcement  of  cleanliness,  the  care  of 
defective  conditions,  inborn  or  acquired,  with  special 
treatment  for  mentally  defective  children,  an  ever- 
increasing  amount  of  medical  inspection  and  supervision, 


INTRODUCTION  7 

while  it  is  beginning  to  include  arrangements  for  placing 
the  child  in  work  suited  to  his  capacities  when  he  leaves 
school. 

During  the  past  ten  years  the  movement  of  social 
reform  has  entered  a  fourth  stage.  The  care  of  the 
child  during  his  school-days  was  seen  to  be  insufficient ; 
it  began  too  late,  when  probably  the  child's  fate  for 
life  was  already  decided.  It  was  necessary  to  push  the 
process  further  back,  to  birth  and  even  to  the  stage 
before  birth,  by  directing  social  care  to  the  infant, 
and  by  taking  thought  of  the  mother.  This  consideration 
has  led  to  a  whole  series  of  highly  important  and  fruitful 
measures  which  are  only  beginning  to  develop,  although 
they  have  already  proved  very  beneficial.  The  immediate 
notification  to  the  authorities  of  a  child's  birth,  and  the 
institution  of  Health  Visitors  to  ascertain  what  is  being 
done  for  the  infant's  well-being,  and  to  aid  the  mother 
with  advice,  have  certainly  been  a  large  factor  in  the 
recent  reduction  in  the  infantile  death-rate  in  England.1 
The  care  of  the  infant  has  indeed  now  become  a  new 
applied  science,  the  science  of  puericulture.     Professor 

1  The  rate  of  infant  mortality  in  England  and  Wales  has  decreased 
from  149  per  1000  births  in  1871-80  to  127  per  1000  births  in  1910. 
In  reference  to  this  remarkable  fall  which  has  taken  place  pari  passu 
with  the  fall  in  the  birth-rate,  Newsholme,  the  medical  officer  to  the 
Local  Government  Board,  writes  :  "  There  can  be  no  reasonable  doubt 
that  much  of  the  reduction  has  been  caused  by  that  '  concentration  ' 
on  the  mother  and  the  child  which  has  been  a  striking  feature  of  the 
last  few  years.  Had  the  experience  of  1896-1900  held  good  there  would 
have  been  45,120  more  deaths  of  infants  in  1910  than  actually  occurred." 
In  some  parts  of  the  country,  however,  where  the  women  go  out  to 
work  in  factories  (as  in  Lancashire  and  parts  of  Staffordshire)  the  in- 
fantile mortality  remains  very  high. 


8  THE  TASK  OF  SOCIAL  HYGIENE 

Budin  of  Paris  may  fairly  be  regarded  as  the  founder 
of  puericulture  by  the  establishment  in  Paris,  in  1892, 
of  Infant  Consultations,  to  which  mothers  were  en- 
couraged to  bring  their  babies  to  be  weighed  and  ex- 
amined, any  necessary  advice  being  given  regarding 
the  care  of  the  baby.  The  mothers  are  persuaded  to 
suckle  their  infants  if  possible,  and  if  their  own  health 
permits.  For  the  cases  in  which  suckling  is  undesirable 
or  impossible,  Budin  established  Milk  Depots,  where 
pure  milk  is  supplied  at  a  low  price  or  freely.  Infant 
Consultations  and  Milk  Depots  are  now  becoming  common 
everywhere.  A  little  later  than  Budin,  another  dis- 
tinguished French  physician,  Pinard,  carried  pueri- 
culture a  step  further  back,  but  a  very  important  step, 
by  initiating  a  movement  for  the  care  of  the  pregnant 
woman.  Pinard  and  his  pupils  have  shown  by  a  number 
of  detailed  investigations  that  the  children  born  to 
working  mothers  who  rest  during  the  last  three  months 
of  pregnancy,  are  to  a  marked  extent  larger  and  finer 
than  the  children  of  those  mothers  who  enjoy  no  such 
period  of  rest,  even  though  the  mothers  themselves 
may  be  equally  robust  and  healthy  in  both  cases.  More- 
over, it  is  found  that  premature  birth,  one  of  the 
commonest  accidents  of  modern  life,  tends  to  be  pre- 
vented by  such  rest.  The  children  of  mothers  who 
rest  enjoy  on  the  average  three  weeks  longer  develop- 
ment in  the  womb  than  the  children  of  the  mothers 
who  do  not  rest,  and  this  prolonged  ante-natal  develop- 
ment cannot  fail  to  be  a  benefit  for  the  whole  of  the 
child's    subsequent    life.      The    movement    started    by 


INTRODUCTION  9 

Pinard,  though  strictly  a  continuation  of  the  great 
movement  for  the  improvement  of  the  conditions  of 
life,  takes  us  as  far  back  as  we  are  able  to  go  on  these 
lines,  and  has  in  it  the  promise  of  an  immense  benefit 
to  human  efficiency. 

In  connection  with  the  movement  of  puericulture 
initiated  by  Budin  and  Pinard  must  be  mentioned 
the  institution  of  Schools  for  Mothers,  for  it  is  closely 
associated  with  the  aims  of  puericulture.  The  School 
for  Mothers  arose  in  Belgium,  a  little  later  than  the 
activities  of  Budin  and  Pinard  commenced.  About 
1900  a  young  Socialist  doctor  of  Ghent,  Dr.  Miele, 
started  the  first  school  of  this  kind,  with  girls  of  from 
twelve  to  sixteen  years  of  age  as  students  and  assistants. 
The  School  eventually  included  as  many  as  twelve 
different  services,  among  these  being  dispensaries  for 
mothers,  a  mothers'  friendly  society,  milk  depots  both 
for  babies  and  nursing  mothers,  health  talks  to  mothers 
with  demonstrations,  courses  on  puericulture  (including 
anatomy,  physiology,  preparation  of  foods,  weighing, 
etc.)  to  girls  between  fourteen  and  eighteen,  who  after- 
wards become  eligible  for  appointment  as  paid  assistants.1 
In  1907  Schools  for  Mothers  were  introduced  into  England, 
at  first  under  the  auspices  of  Dr.  Sykes,  Medical  Officer 
of  Health  for  St.  Pancras,  London.  Such  Schools  are 
now  spreading  everywhere.  In  the  end  they  will  probably 
be  considered  necessary  centres  for  any  national  system 
of  puericulture.    Every  girl  at  the  end  of  her  school  life 

1  Mrs.  Bertrand  Russell,  "  The  Ghent  School  for  Mothers,"  Nine- 
teenth Century,  December,  1906. 


io  THE  TASK  OF  SOCIAL  HYGIENE 

should  be  expected  to  pass  through  a  certain  course  of 
training  at  a  School  for  Mothers.  It  would  be  the  technical 
school  for  the  working-class  mother,  while  such  a  course 
would  be  invaluable  for  any  girl,  whatever  her  social 
class,  even  if  she  is  never  called  to  be  a  mother  herself 
or  to  have  the  care  of  children. 

The  great  movement  of  social  reform  during  the 
nineteenth  century,  we  thus  see,  has  moved  in  four 
stages,  each  of  which  has  reinforced  rather  than  re- 
placed that  which  went  before  :  (i)  the  effort  to  cleanse 
the  gross  filth  of  cities  and  to  remedy  obvious  disorder 
by  systematic  attention  to  scavenging,  drainage,  the 
supply  of  water  and  of  artificial  light,  as  well  as  by 
improved  policing ;  (2)  the  great  system  of  factory 
legislation  for  regulating  the  conditions  of  work,  and 
to  some  extent  restraining  the  work  of  women  and 
of  children ;  (3)  the  introduction  of  national  systems  of 
education,  and  the  gradual  extension  of  the  idea  of 
education  to  cover  far  more  than  mere  instruction ; 
and  (4),  most  fundamental  of  all  and  last  to  appear, 
the  effort  to  guard  the  child  before  the  school  age,  even 
at  birth,  even  before  birth,  by  bestowing  due  care  on 
the  future  mother.1 

1  It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  say  that  other  classifications  of  social 
reform  on  its  more  hygienic  side  may  be  put  forward.  Thus  W.  H. 
Allen,  looking  more  narrowly  at  the  sanitary  side  of  the  matter,  but 
without  confining  his  consideration  to  the  nineteenth  century,  finds 
that  there  are  always  seven  stages  :  (1)  that  of  racial  tutelage,  when 
sanitation  becomes  conscious  and  receives  the  sanction  of  law  ;  (2)  the 
introduction  of  sanitary  comfort,  well-paved  streets,  public  sewers, 
extensive  waterworks ;  (3)  the  period  of  commercial  sanitation, 
when  the  mercantile  classes  insist  upon  such  measures  as  quarantine 
and  street-cleaning  to  check  the  immense  ravages  of  epidemics  ;   (4)  the 


INTRODUCTION  n 

It  may  be  pointed  out  that  this  movement  of  practical 
social  reform  has  been  accompanied,  stimulated,  and 
guided  by  a  corresponding  movement  in  the  sciences 
which  in  their  application  are  indispensable  to  the 
progress  of  civilized  social  reform.  There  has  been 
a  process  of  mutual  action  and  reaction  between  science 
and  practice.  The  social  movement  has  stimulated  the 
development  of  abstract  science,  and  the  new  progress  in 
science  has  enabled  further  advances  to  be  made  in 
social  practice.  The  era  of  expansion  in  sanitation 
was  the  era  of  development  in  chemistry  and  physics, 
which  alone  enabled  a  sound  system  of  sanitation  to  be 
developed.  The  fight  against  disease  would  have  been 
impossible  but  for  bacteriology.  The  new  care  for 
human  life,  and  for  the  protection  of  its  source,  is  asso- 
ciated with  fresh  developments  of  biological  science. 
Sociological  observations  and  speculation,  including 
economics,  are  intimately  connected  with  the  efforts  of 
social  reform  to  attain  a  broad,  sound,  and  truly  demo- 
cratic basis.1 

introduction  of  legislation  against  nuisances  and  the  tendency  to 
extend  the  definition  of  nuisance,  which  for  Bracton,  in  the  fourteenth 
century,  meant  an  obstruction,  and  for  Blackstone,  in  the  eighteenth, 
included  things  otherwise  obnoxious,  such  as  offensive  trades  and  foul 
watercourses ;  (5)  the  stage  of  precaution  against  the  dangers  incidental 
to  the  slums  that  are  fostered  by  modern  conditions  of  industry  ; 
(6)  the  stage  of  philanthropy,  erecting  hospitals,  model  tenements, 
schools,  etc. ;  (7)  the  stage  of  socialistic  sanitation,  when  the  community 
as  a  whole  actively  seeks  its  own  sanitary  welfare,  and  devotes  public 
funds  to  this  end.  (W.  H.  Allen,  "  Sanitation  and  Social  Progress," 
American  Journal  of  Sociology,  March,  I9°3-) 

1  Dr.  F.  Bushee  has  pointed  out  ("  Science  and  Social  Progress," 
Popular  Science  Monthly,  September,  191 1)  that  there  is  a  kind  of  related 
progression  between  science  and  practice  in  this  matter  :  "  The  natural 


12  THE  TASK  OF  SOCIAL  HYGIENE 

When  we  survey  this  movement  as  a  whole,  we  have 
to  recognize  that  it  is  exclusively  concerned  with  the 
improvement  of  the  conditions  of  life.  It  makes  no 
attempt  to  influence  either  the  quantity  or  the  quality 
of  life.1  It  may  sometimes  have  been  carried  out  with 
the  assumption  that  to  improve  the  conditions  of  life 
is,  in  some  way  or  other,  to  improve  the  quality  of  life 
itself.  But  it  accepted  the  stream  of  life  as  it  found 
it,  and  while  working  to  cleanse  the  banks  of  the  stream, 
it  made  no  attempt  to  purify  the  stream  itself. 

It  must,  however,  be  remembered  that  the  arguments 
which,  especially  nowadays,  are  brought  against  the 
social  reform  of  the  condition  of  life,  will  not  bear  serious 

sciences  developed  first,  because  man  was  first  interested  in  the  con- 
quest of  nature,  and  the  simpler  physical  laws  could  be  grasped  at 
an  early  period.  This  period  brought  an  increase  of  wealth,  but  it 
was  wasteful  of  human  life.  The  desire  to  save  life  led  the  way 
to  the  study  of  biology.  Knowledge  of  the  physical  environment 
and  of  life,  however,  did  not  prevent  social  disease  from  flourishing, 
and  did  not  greatly  improve  the  social  condition  of  a  large  part  of 
society.  To  overcome  these  defects  the  social  sciences  within  recent 
years  have  been  cultivated  with  great  seriousness.  Interest  in  the 
social  sciences  has  had  to  wait  for  the  enlarged  sympathies  and  the 
sense  of  solidarity  which  has  appeared  with  the  growing  interdepend- 
ence of  dense  populations,  and  these  conditions  have  been  dependent 
upon  the  advance  of  the  other  sciences.  With  the  cultivation  of  the 
social  sciences,'  the  chain  of  knowledge  will  be  complete,  at  least  so 
far  as  the  needs  which  have  already  appeared  are  concerned.  For 
each  group  of  sciences  will  solve  one  or  more  of  the  great  problems 
which  man  has  encountered  in  the  process  of  development.  The 
physical  sciences  will  solve  the  problems  of  environment,  the  biological 
sciences  the  problems  of  life,  and  the  social  sciences  the  problems  of 
society." 

1  This  exclusive  pre-occupation  with  the  improvement  of  the  environ- 
ment has  been  termed  Euthenics  by  Mrs.  Ellen  H.  Richards,  who  has 
written  a  book  with  this  title,  advocating  euthenics  in  opposition  to 
eugenics. 


INTRODUCTION  13 

examination.  It  is  said,  for  instance,  or  at  all  events 
implied,  that  we  need  bestow  very  little  care  on  the 
conditions  of  life  because  such  care  can  have  no  perma- 
nently beneficial  effect  on  the  race,  since  acquired  charac- 
ters, for  the  most  part,  are  not  transmitted  to  descendants. 
But  to  assume  that  social  reform  is  unnecessary  because 
it  is  not  inherited  is  altogether  absurd.  The  people 
who  make  this  assumption  would  certainly  not  argue 
that  it  is  useless  for  them  to  satisfy  their  own  hunger 
and  thirst,  because  their  children  will  not  thereby  be 
safeguarded  from  experiencing  hunger  and  thirst.  Yet 
the  needs  which  the  movement  of  organized  social  reform 
seeks  to  satisfy  are  precisely  on  a  level  with,  and  indeed 
to  some  extent  identical  with,  the  needs  of  hunger  and 
thirst.  The  impulse  and  the  duty  which  move  every 
civilized  community  to  elaborate  and  gratify  its  own 
social  needs  to  the  utmost  are  altogether  independent 
of  the  race,  and  would  not  cease  to  exist  even  in  a  com- 
munity vowed  to  celibacy  or  the  most  absolute  Neo- 
Malthusianism.  Nor,  again,  must  it  be  said  that  social 
reform  destroys  the  beneficial  results  of  natural  selec- 
tion. 

Here,  indeed,  we  encounter  a  disputed  point,  and 
it  may  be  admitted  that  the  precise  data  for  absolute 
demonstration  in  one  direction  or  the  other  cannot 
yet  be  found.  Whenever  human  beings  breed  in  reckless 
and  unrestrained  profusion — as  is  the  case  under  some 
conditions  before  a  free  and  self-conscious  civilization 
is  attained — there  is  an  immense  infantile  mortality. 
It  is  claimed,  on  the  one  hand,  that  this  is  beneficial, 


i4  THE  TASK  OF  SOCIAL  HYGIENE 

and  need  not  be  interfered  with.  The  weak  are  killed 
off,  it  is  said,  and  the  strong  survive ;  there  is  a  process 
of  natural  survival  of  the  fittest.  That  is  true.  But 
it  is  equally  true,  as  has  also  been  clearly  seen  on  the 
other  hand,  that  though  the  relatively  strongest  survive, 
their  relative  strength  has  been  impaired  by  the  very 
influences  which  have  proved  altogether  fatal  to  their 
weaker  brethren.  There  is  an  immense  infantile  mortality 
in  Russia.  Yet,  notwithstanding  any  resulting  "  survival 
of  the  fittest,"  Russia  is  far  more  ravaged  by  disease 
than  Norway,  where  infantile  mortality  is  low.  "A  high 
infantile  mortality,"  as  George  Carpenter,  a  great 
authority  on  the  diseases  of  childhood,  remarks,  "  de- 
notes a  far  higher  infantile  deterioration  rate "  ;  or, 
as  another  doctor  puts  it,  "  the  dead  baby  is  next  of 
kin  to  the  diseased  baby."  The  protection  of  the  weak, 
so  frequently  condemned  by  some  Neo-Darwinians, 
is  thus  in  reality,  as  Goldscheid  terms  it,  "  the  protection 
of  the  strong  from  degeneration." 

There  is,  however,  more  to  be  said.  Not  only  must 
an  undue  struggle  with  unfavourable  conditions  enfeeble 
the  strong  as  well  as  kill  the  feeble  ;  it  also  imposes 
an  intolerable  burden  upon  these  enfeebled  survivors. 
The  process  of  destruction  is  not  sudden,  it  is  gradual. 
It  is  a  long-drawn-out  process.  It  involves  the  multi- 
plication of  the  diseased,  the  maimed,  the  feeble-minded, 
of  paupers  and  lunatics  and  criminals.  Even  natural 
selection  thus  includes  the  need  for  protecting  the  feeble, 
and  so  renders  urgent  the  task  of  social  reform,  while 
the  more  thoroughly  this  task  is  carried  out  with  the 


INTRODUCTION  15 

growth  of  civilization,  the  more  stupendous  and  over- 
whelming the  task  becomes. 

It  is  thus  that  civilization,  at  a  certain  point  in  its 
course,  renders  inevitable  the  appearance  of  that  wider 
and  deeper  organization  of  life  which  in  the  present 
volume  we  are  concerned  with  under  the  name  of  Social 
Hygiene.  That  movement  is  far  from  being  an  abrupt 
or  revolutionary  manifestation  in  the  ordinary  progress 
of  social  growth.  As  we  have  seen,  social  reform  during 
the  past  eighty  years  may  be  said  to  have  proceeded 
in  four  successive  stages,  each  of  which  has  involved 
a  nearer  approach  to  the  sources  of  life.  The  fourth 
stage,  which  in  its  beginnings  dates  only  from  the  last 
years  of  the  nineteenth  century,  takes  us  to  the  period 
before  birth,  and  is  concerned  with  the  care  of  the  child 
in  the  mother's  womb.  The  next  stage  cannot  fail 
to  take  us  to  the  very  source  of  life  itself,  lifting  us 
beyond  the  task  of  purifying  the  conditions,  and  laying 
on  us  the  further  task  of  regulating  the  quantity  and 
raising  the  quality  of  life  at  its  very  source.  The  duty 
of  purifying,  ordering,  and  consolidating  the  banks  of  the 
stream  must  still  remain.1  But  when  we  are  able  to 
control  the  stream  at  its  source  we  are  able  to  some 

1  Not  one  of  the  four  stages  of  social  reform  already  summarized 
can  be  neglected.  On  the  contrary,  they  all  need  to  be  still  further 
consolidated  in  a  completely  national  organization  of  health.  I  may 
perhaps  refer  to  the  little  book  on  The  Nationalization  of  Health,  in 
which,  many  years  ago,  I  foreshadowed  this  movement,  as  well 
as  to  the  recent  work  of  Professor  Benjamin  Moore  on  the  same 
subject.  The  gigantic  efforts  of  Germany,  and  later  of  England,  to 
establish  National  Insurance  systems,  bear  noble  witness  to  the  ardour 
with  which  these  two  countries,  at  all  events,  are  moving  towards  the 
desired  goal. 


16  THE  TASK  OF  SOCIAL  HYGIENE 

extent  to  prevent  the  contamination  of  that  stream  by 
filth,  and  ensure  that  its  muddy  floods  shall  not  sweep  away 
the  results  of  our  laborious  work  on  the  banks.  Our  sense 
of  social  responsibility  is  developing  into  a  sense  of  racial 
responsibility,  and  that  development  is  expressed  in  the 
nature  of  the  tasks  of  Social  Hygiene  which  now  lie  before  us. 
It  is  the  control  of  the  reproduction  of  the  race  which 
renders  possible  the  new  conception  of  Social  Hygiene. 
We  have  seen  that  the  gradual  process  of  social  reform 
during  the  first  three  quarters  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
by  successive  stages  of  movement  towards  the  sources 
of  life,  finally  reached  the  moment  of  conception.  The 
first  result  of  reform  at  this  point  was  that  procreation 
became  a  deliberate  act.  Up  till  then  the  method  of 
propagating  the  race  was  the  same  as  that  which  savages 
have  carried  on  during  thousands  of  years,  the  chief 
difference  being  that  whereas  savages  have  frequently 
sought  to  compensate  their  recklessness  by  destroying 
their  inferior  offspring,  we  had  accepted  all  the  offspring, 
good,  bad,  and  indifferent,  produced  by  our  indiscrimi- 
nate recklessness,  shielding  ourselves  by  a  false  theology. 
Children  "  came,"  and  their  parents  disclaimed  all 
responsibility  for  their  coming.  The  children  were 
"  sent  by  God,"  and  if  they  all  turned  out  to  be  idiots, 
the  responsibility  was  God's.  But  when  it  became 
generally  realized  that  it  was  possible  to  limit  offspring 
without  interfering  with  conjugal  life  a  step  of  immense 
importance  was  achieved.  It  became  clear  to  all  that 
the  Divine  force  works  through  us,  and  that  we  are  not 
entitled  to  cast  the  burden  of  our  evil  actions  on  any 


INTRODUCTION  17 

Higher  Power.  Marriage  no  longer  fatally  involved 
an  endless  procession  of  children  who,  in  so  far  as  they 
survived  at  all,  were  in  a  large  number  of  cases  doomed 
to  disease,  neglect,  misery,  and  ignorance.  The  new 
Social  Hygiene  was  for  the  first  time  rendered  possible. 

It  was  in  France  during  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century  that  the  control  of  reproduction  first  began  to 
become  a  social  habit.  In  Sweden  and  in  Denmark, 
the  fall  in  the  birth-rate,  though  it  has  been  irregular, 
may  be  said  to  have  begun  in  i860.  It  was  not  until 
about  the  year  1876  that,  in  so  far  as  we  may  judge  by 
the  arrest  of  the  birth-rate,  the  movement  began  to 
spread  to  Europe  generally.  In  England  it  is  usual 
to  associate  this  change  with  a  famous  prosecution 
which  brought  a  knowledge  of  the  means  of  preventing 
conception  to  the  whole  population  of  Great  Britain. 
Undoubtedly  this  prosecution  was  an  important  factor 
in  the  movement,  but  we  cannot  doubt  that,  even  if  the 
prosecution  had  not  taken  place,  the  course  of  social 
progress  must  still  have  pursued  the  same  course.  It 
is  noteworthy  that  it  was  about  this  same  period,  in 
various  European  countries,  that  the  tide  turned,  and 
the  excessively  high  birth-rate  began  to  fall.1    Reckless- 

1  In  some  countries,  however,  the  decline,  although  traceable  about 
1876,  only  began  to  be  pronounced  somewhat  later,  in  Austria  in  1883, 
in  the  German  Empire,  Hungary  and  Italy  in  1885,  and  in  Prussia 
in  1886.  Most  of  these  countries,  though  late  in  following  the 
modern  movement  of  civilization  initiated  by  France,  are  rapidly 
making  their  way  in  the  same  direction.  Thus  the  birth-rate  in  Berlin 
is  already  as  low  as  that  of  Paris  ten  years  ago,  although  the  French 
decline  began  at  a  very  early  period.  In  Norway,  again,  the  decline 
was  not  marked  until  1900,  but  the  birth-rate  has  nevertheless  already 
fallen  as  low  as  that  of  Sweden,  where  the  fall  began  very  much  earlier. 

C 


18  THE  TASK  OF  SOCIAL  HYGIENE 

ness  was  giving  place  to  foresight  and  self-control. 
Such  foresight  and  self-control  are  of  the  essence  of 
civilization.1 

It  cannot  be  disputed  that  the  transformation  by 
which  the  propagation  of  the  race  became  deliberate 
and  voluntary  has  not  been  established  in  social  custom 
without  a  certain  amount  of  protestation  from  various 
sides.  No  social  change,  however  beneficial,  ever  is 
established  without  such  protestation,  which  may, 
therefore,  be  regarded  as  an  inevitable  and  probably 
a  salutary  part  of  social  change.  Even  some  would-be 
scientific  persons,  with  a  display  of  elaborate  statistics, 
set  forth  various  alarmistic  doctrines.  If,  said  these 
persons,  this  new  movement  goes  on  at  the  present 
pace,  and  if  all  other  conditions  remain  unchanged, 
then  all  sorts  of  terrible  results  will  ensue.  But  the 
alarming  conclusion  failed  to  ensue,  and  for  a  very 
sufficient  reason.  The  assumed  premises  of  the  argument 
were  unsound.  Nothing  ever  goes  on  at  the  same  pace, 
nor   do   all   other   conditions   ever   remain   unchanged. 

1  "  Foresight  and  self-control  is,  and  always  must  be,  the  ground 
and  medium  of  all  Moral  Socialism,"  says  Bosanquet  {The  Civilization 
of  Christendom,  p.  336),  using  the  term  "  Socialism  "  in  the  wide  and  not 
in  the  economic  sense.  We  see  the  same  civilized  growth  of  foresight 
and  self-control  in  the  decrease  of  drunkenness.  Thus  in  England  the 
number  of  convictions  for  drunkenness,  while  varying  greatly  in  differ- 
ent parts  of  the  country,  is  decreasing  for  the  whole  country  at  the 
rapid  rate  of  5000  to  8000  a  year,  notwithstanding  the  constant  growth 
of  the  population.  It  is  incorrect  to  suppose  that  this  decrease  has  any 
connection  with  decreased  opportunities  for  drinking  ;  thus  in  London 
County  and  in  Cardiff  the  proportion  of  premises  licensed  for  drinking 
is  the  same,  yet  while  the  convictions  for  drunkenness  in  1910  were 
in  London  83  per  10,000  inhabitants,  in  Cardiff  they  were  under  6 
per  10,000. 


INTRODUCTION  19 

The  world  is  a  living  fire,  as  Heraclitus  long  ago  put  it. 
All  things  are  in  perpetual  flux.  Life  is  a  process  of 
perpetual  movement.  It  is  idle  to  bid  the  world  stand 
still,  and  then  to  argue  about  the  consequences.  The 
world  will  not  stand  still,  it  is  for  ever  revolving,  for 
ever  revealing  some  new  facet  that  had  not  been  allowed 
for  in  the  neatly  arranged  mechanism  of  the  statistician. 

It  is  perhaps  unnecessary  to  dwell  on  a  point  which 
is  now  at  last,  one  may  hope,  becoming  clear  to  most 
intelligent  persons.  But  I  may  perhaps  be  allowed 
to  refer  in  passing  to  an  argument  that  has  been  brought 
forward  with  the  wearisome  iteration  which  always 
marks  the  progress  of  those  who  are  feeble  in  argument. 
The  good  stocks  of  upper  social  class  are  decreasing  in 
fertility,  it  is  said ;  the  bad  stocks  of  lower  social  class 
are  not  decreasing  ;  therefore  the  bad  stocks  are  tending 
to  replace  the  good  stocks.1 

It  must,  however,  be  pointed  out  that,  even  assuming 
that  the  facts  are  as  stated,  it  is  a  hazardous  assumption 
that  the  best  stocks  are  necessarily  the  stocks  of  high 
social  class.    In  the  main  no  doubt  this  is  so,  but  good 

1  Thus  Heron  finds  that  in  London  during  the  past  fifty  years  there 
has  been  ioo  per  cent  increase  in  the  intensity  of  the  relation  between 
low  social  birth  and  high  birth-rate,  and  that  the  high  birth-rate  of 
the  lower  social  classes  is  not  fully  compensated  by  their  high  death- 
rate  (D.  Heron,  "  On  the  Relation  of  Fertility  in  Man  to  Social 
Status,"  Drapers'  Company  Research  Memoirs,  No.  I,  1906).  As, 
however,  Newsholme  and  Stevenson  point  out  (Journal  Royal  Statis- 
tical Society,  April,  1906,  p.  74),  the  net  addition  to  the  population 
made  by  the  best  social  classes  is  at  so  very  slightly  lower  a  rate  than 
that  made  by  the  poorest  class  that,  even  if  we  consent  to  let  the 
question  rest  on  this  ground,  there  is  still  no  urgent  need  for  the 
wailings  of  Cassandra. 


20  THE  TASK  OF  SOCIAL  HYGIENE 

stocks  are  nevertheless  so  widely  spread  through  all 
classes — such  good  stocks  in  the  lower  social  classes 
being  probably  the  most  resistent  to  adverse  conditions — 
that  we  are  not  entitled  to  regard  even  a  slightly  greater 
net  increase  of  the  lower  social  classes  as  an  unmitigated 
evil.  It  may  be  that,  as  Mercier  has  expressed  it,  "  we 
have  to  regard  a  civilized  community  somewhat  in  the 
light  of  a  lamp,  which  burns  at  the  top  and  is  replenished 
from  the  bottom."  1 

The  soundness  of  a  stock,  and  its  aptitude  for  per- 
forming efficiently  the  functions  of  its  own  social  sphere, 
cannot,  indeed,  be  accurately  measured  by  any  tendency 
to  rise  into  a  higher  social  sphere.  On  the  whole,  from 
generation  to  generation,  the  men  of  a  good  stock  remain 
within  their  own  social  sphere,  whether  high  or  low, 
adequately  performing  their  functions  in  that  sphere, 
from  generation  to  generation.  They  remain,  we  may 
say,  in  that  social  stratum  of  which  the  specific  gravity 
is  best  suited  for  their  existence.2 

Yet,  undoubtedly,  from  time  to  time,  there  is  a  slight 

1  Sociological  Papers  of  the  Sociological  Society,  1904,  p.  35. 

E  There  is  a  certain  profit  in  studying  one's  own  ancestry.  It  has 
been  somewhat  astonishing  to  me  to  find  how  very  slight  are  the  social 
oscillations  traceable  in  a  middle-class  family  and  the  families  it 
intermarries  with  through  several  centuries.  A  professional  family 
tends  to  form  a  caste  marrying  within  that  caste.  An  ambitious  mem- 
ber of  the  family  may  marry  a  baronet's  daughter,  and  another,  less 
pretentious,  a  village  tradesman's  daughter  ;  but  the  general  level  is 
maintained  without  rising  or  falling.  Occasionally,  it  happens  that  the 
ambitious  and  energetic  son  of  a  prosperous  master-craftsman  be- 
comes a  professional  man,  marries  into  the  professional  caste,  and 
founds  a  professional  family  ;  such  a  family  seems  to  flourish  for  some 
three  generations,  and  then  suddenly  fails  and  dies  out  in  the  male 
line,  while  the  vigour  of  the  female  line  is  not  impaired. 


INTRODUCTION  21 

upward  social  tendency,  due  in  most  cases  to  the  ex- 
ceptional energy  and  ability  of  some  individual  who 
succeeds  in  permanently  lifting  his  family  into  a  slightly 
higher  social  stratum.1  Such  a  process  has  always 
taken  place,  in  the  past  even  more  conspicuously  than 
in  the  present.  The  Normans  who  came  over  to  England 
with  William  the  Conqueror  and  constituted  the  proud 
English  nobility  were  simply  a  miscellaneous  set  of 
adventurers,  professional  fighting  men,  of  unknown, 
and  no  doubt  for  the  most  part  undistinguished,  lineage. 
William  the  Conqueror  himself  was  the  son  of  a  woman 
of  the  people.  The  Catholic  Church  founded  no  families, 
but  its  democratic  constitution  opened  a  career  to  men  of 
all  classes,  and  the  most  brilliant  sons  of  the  Church 
were  often  of  the  lowliest  social  rank.  We  should  not, 
therefore,  say  that  the  bad  stocks  are  replacing  the  good 
stocks.  There  is  not  the  slightest  evidence  for  any  such 
theory.  All  that  we  are  entitled  to  say  is  that  when 
in  the  upward  progression  of  a  community  the  vanishing 
point  of  culture  and  refinement  is  attained  the  bearers 
of  that  culture  and  refinement  die  off  as  naturally  and 
inevitably  as  flowers  in  autumn,  and  from  their  roots 
spring  up  new  and  more  vigorous  shoots  to  replace 
them  and  to  pass  in  their  turn  through  the  same  stages, 
with  that  perpetual  slight  novelty  in  which  lies  the  secret 
of  life,  as  well  as  of  art.    An  aristocracy  which  is  merely 

1  The  new  social  adjustment  of  a  family,  it  is  probable,  is  always 
difficult,  and  if  the  change  is  sudden  or  extreme,  the  new  environment 
may  rapidly  prove  fatal  to  the  family.  Lorenz  (Lehrbuch  der  Genealogie, 
p.  135)  has  shown  that  when  a  peasant  family  reaches  an  upper  social 
class  it  dies  out  in  a  few  generations. 


22  THE  TASK  OF  SOCIAL  HYGIENE 

an  aristocracy  because  it  is  "  old  " — whether  it  is  an 
aristocracy  of  families,  or  of  races,  or  of  species — has 
already  ceased  to  be  an  aristocracy  in  any  sound  meaning 
of  the  term.    We  need  not  regret  its  disappearance. 

Do  not,  therefore,  let  us  waste  our  time  in  crying 
over  the  dead  roses  of  the  summer  that  is  past.  There 
is  something  morbid  in  the  perpetual  groaning  over 
that  inevitable  decay  which  is  itself  a  part  of  all  life. 
Such  a  perpetual  narrow  insistence  on  one  aspect  of 
life  is  scarcely  sane.  One  suspects  that  these  people 
are  themselves  of  those  stocks  over  whose  fate  they 
grieve.  Let  us,  therefore,  mercifully  leave  them  to 
manure  their  dead  roses  in  peace.  They  will  soon  be 
forgotten.  The  world  is  for  ever  dying.  The  world  is 
also  for  ever  bursting  with  life.  The  spring  song  of  Sursum 
corda  easily  overwhelms  the  dying  autumnal  wails  of 
the  Dies  Irce. 

It  would  thus  appear  that,  even  apart  from  any 
deliberate  restraint  from  procreation,  as  a  family  attains 
the  highest  culture  and  refinement  which  civilization 
can  yield,  that  family  tends  to  die  out,  at  all  events 
in  the  male  line.1  This  is,  for  instance,  the  result  which 
Fahlbeck  has  reached  in  his  valuable  demographic 
study  of  the  Swedish  nobility,  Der  Adel  Schwedens. 
"  Apparently,"  says  Fahlbeck,  "  the  greater  demands 
on  nervous  and  intellectual  force  which  the  culture  and 
refinement  of  the  upper  classes  produce  are  chiefly 
responsible  for  this.     For  these  are  the  two  personal 

1  See,  on  this  point,  Reibmayr,  Entwicklungsgeschichte  des  Talentes 
und  Genies,  Vol.  I,  ch.  vn. 


INTRODUCTION  23 

factors  by  which  those  classes  are  distinguished  from  the 
lower  classes  :  high  education  and  refinement  in  tastes 
and  habits.     The  first   involves   predominant   activity 
of  the  brain,  the  last  a  heightened  sensitiveness  in  all 
departments  of  nervous  life.     In  both  respects,  there- 
fore, there  is  increased  work   for  the  nervous  system, 
and  this  is  compensated  in  the  other  vital  functions, 
especially  reproduction.    Man  cannot  achieve  everything  ; 
what  he  gains  on  one  side  he  loses  on  the  other."    We 
should  do  well  to  hold  these  wise  words  in  mind  when 
we  encounter  those  sciolists  who  in  the  presence  of  the 
finest    and   rarest    manifestations    of    civilizations,    can 
only   talk   of  race   "  decay."     A   female  salmon,   it   is 
estimated,  lays  about  nine  hundred  eggs  for  every  pound 
of  her  own  weight,  and  she  may  weigh  fifty  pounds. 
The  progeny  of  Shakespeare  and  Goethe,  such  as  it  was, 
disappeared  in  the  very  centuries  in  which  these  great 
men  themselves  died.    At  the  present  stage  of  civilization 
we  are  somewhat  nearer  to  Shakespeare  and  Goethe  than 
to  the  salmon.    We  must  set  our  ideals  towards  a  very 
different  direction  from  that  which  commends  itself  to 
our   Salmonidian   sciolists.     "  Increase   and   multiply  ' 
was  the  legendary  injunction  uttered  on  the  threshold 
of  an  empty  world.     It  is  singularly  out  of  place  in  an 
age   in   which   the   earth   and   the   sea,    if   not    indeed 
the  very  air,  swarm  with  countless  myriads  of  undis- 
tinguished and  indistinguishable  human  creatures,  until 
the  beauty  of  the  world  is  befouled  and  the  glory  of  the 
Heavens  bedimmed.    To  stem  back  that  tide  is  the  task 
now  imposed  on  our  heroism,  to  elevate  and  purify  and 


24  THE  TASK  OF  SOCIAL  HYGIENE 

refine  the  race,  to  introduce  the  ideal  of  quality  in  place 
of  the  ideal  of  quantity  which  has  run  riot  so  long, 
with  the  results  we  see.  "  As  the  Northern  Saga  tells 
that  Odin  must  sacrifice  his  eye  to  attain  the  higher 
wisdom,"  concludes  Fahlbeck,  "  so  Man  also,  in  order 
to  win  the  treasures  of  culture  and  refinement,  must 
give  not  only  his  eye  but  his  life,  if  not  his  own  life  that 
of  his  posterity."  1  The  vulgar  aim  of  reckless  racial 
fertility  is  no  longer  within  our  reach  and  no  longer 
commends  itself  as  worthy.  It  is  not  consonant  with 
the  stage  of  civilization  we  are  at  the  moment  passing 
through.  The  higher  task  is  now  ours  of  the  regeneration 
of  the  race,  or,  if  we  wish  to  express  that  betterment 
less  questionably,  the  aggeneration  of  the  race.2 

1  Fahlbeck,  op.  cit.,  p.  168. 

2  Regeneration  implies  that  there  has  been  degeneration,  and  it 
cannot  be  positively  affirmed  that  such  degeneration  has,  on  the  whole, 
occurred  in  such  a  manner  as  to  affect  the  race.  Reibmayr  (Die 
Entwicklungsgeschichte  des  Talentes  und  Genies,  Bd.  I,  p.  400)  regards 
degeneration  as  a  process  setting  in  with  urbanization  and  the  tendency 
to  diminished  population  ;  if  so,  it  is  but  another  name  for  civilization, 
and  can  only  be  condemned  by  condemning  civilization,  whether  or 
not  physical  deterioration  occurs.  The  Inter-departmental  Commission 
on  Physical  Deterioration  held  in  1904,  in  London,  concluded  that 
there  are  no  sufficient  statistical  or  other  data  to  prove  that  the  physique 
of  the  people  in  the  present,  as  compared  with  the  past,  has  undergone 
any  change  ;  and  this  conclusion  was  confirmed  by  the  Director- 
General  of  the  Army  Medical  Service.  There  is  certainly  good  reason 
to  believe  that  urban  populations  (and  especially  industrial  workers  in 
factories)  are  inferior  in  height  and  weight  and  general  development 
to  rural  populations,  and  less  fit  for  military  or  similar  service.  The 
stunted  development  of  factory  workers  in  the  East  End  of  London 
was  noted  nearly  a  century  ago,  and  German  military  experience 
distinctly  shows  the  inferiority  of  the  town-dweller  to  the  country- 
dweller.  (See  e.g.  Weyl,  Handbuch  der  Hygiene,  Supplement,  Bd.  IV, 
pp.  746  et  seq.  ;  Politisch-Anthropologische  Revue,  1905,  pp.  145  et  seq.) 
The  proportion  of  German  youths  fit  for  military  service  slowly  de- 


INTRODUCTION  25 

The  control  of  reproduction,  we  see,  essential  as  it 
is,  cannot  by  itself  carry  far  the  betterment  of  the  race, 
because  it  involves  no  direct  selection  of  stocks.  Yet 
we  have  to  remember  that  though  this  control,  with 
the  limitation  of  offspring  it  involves,  fails  to  answer 
all  the  demands  which  Social  Hygiene  to-day  makes 
of  us,  it  yet  achieves  much.  It  may  not  improve  what 
we  abstractly  term  the  "  race,"  but  it  immensely  im- 
proves the  individuals  of  which  the  race  is  made  up. 
Thus  the  limitation  of  the  family  renders  it  possible 
to  avoid  the  production  of  undesired  children.  That 
in  itself  is  an  immense  social  gain,  because  it  tends  to 
abolish  excessive  infantile  mortality.1     It  means  that 

creases  every  year  ;  in  1909  it  was  53-6  per  cent,  in  1910  only  53  per 
cent ;  of  those  born  in  the  country  and  engaged  in  agricultural  or 
forest  work  58-2  were  found  fit ;  of  those  born  in  the  country  and 
engaged  in  other  industries,  55-1  per  cent;  of  those  born  in  towns, 
but  engaged  in  agricultural  or  forest  work,  56-2  per  cent ;  of  those 
born  in  towns  and  engaged  in  other  industries  47*9  per  cent.  It  is 
fairly  clear  that  this  deterioration  under  urban  and  industrial  condi- 
tions cannot  properly  be  termed  a  racial  degeneration.  It  is,  moreover, 
greatly  improved  even  by  a  few  months'  training,  and  there  is  an 
immense  difference  between  the  undeveloped,  feeble,  half-starved 
recruit  from  the  slums  and  the  robust,  broad-shouldered  veteran  when 
he  leaves  the  army.  The  term  "  aggeneration  " — not  beyond  criticism, 
though  it  is  free  from  the  objection  to  "  regeneration  " — was  proposed 
by  Prof.  Christian  von  Ehrenfels  (*'  Die  Aufsteigende  Entwicklung 
des  Menschen,"  Politisch-Anthropologische  Revue,  April,  1903,  p.  50). 
1  It  is  unnecessary  to  touch  here  on  the  question  of  infant  mortality, 
which  has  already  been  referred  to,  and  will  again  come  in  for  con- 
sideration in  a  later  chapter.  It  need  only  be  said  that  a  high  birth-rate 
is  inextricably  combined  with  a  high  death-rate.  The  European  coun- 
tries with  the  highest  birth-rates  are,  in  descending  order:  Russia, 
Bulgaria,  Roumania,  Servia,  and  Hungary.  The  European  countries 
with  the  highest  death-rates  are,  in  descending  order,  almost  the  same  : 
Russia,  Hungary,  Spain,  Bulgaria,  and  Servia.  It  is  the  same  outside 
Europe.  Thus  Chile,  with  a  birth-rate  which  comes  next  after  Rou- 
mania, has  a  death-rate  that  is  only  second  to  Russia. 


26  THE  TASK  OF  SOCIAL  HYGIENE 

adequate  care  will  be  expended  upon  the  children  that 
are  produced,  and  that  no  children  will  be  produced 
unless  the  parents  are  in  a  position  to  provide  for  them.1 
Even  the  mere  spacing  out  of  the  children  in  a  family, 
the  larger  interval  between  child-births,  is  a  very  great 
advantage.  The  mother  is  no  longer  exhausted  by 
perpetually  bearing,  suckling,  and  tending  babies,  while 
the  babies  themselves  are  on  the  average  of  better 
quality.2  Thus  the  limitation  of  offspring,  far  from  being 
an  egoistic  measure,  as  some  have  foolishly  supposed, 
is  imperatively  demanded  in  the  altruistic  interests  of 
the  individuals  composing  the  race. 

But  the  control  of  reproduction,  enormously  beneficial 
as  it  is  even  in  its  most  elementary  shapes,  mainly  con- 
cerns us  here  because  it  furnishes  the  essential  condition 
for  the  development  of  Social  Hygiene.  The  control 
of  reproduction  renders  possible,  and  leads  on  to,  a  wise 
selection  in  reproduction.  It  is  only  by  such  selection 
of  children  to  be  born  that  we  can  balance  our  indis- 
criminate care  in  the  preservation  of  all  children  that  are 

1  Nystrom  (La  Vie  Sexuelle,  1910,  p.  248)  believes  that  "  the  time 
is  coming  when  it  will  be  considered  the  duty  of  municipal  authorities, 
if  they  have  found  by  experience  or  have  reason  to  suspect  that  children 
will  be  thrown  upon  the  parish,  to  instruct  parents  in  methods  of 
preventive  conception." 

2  The  directly  unfavourable  influences  on  the  child  of  too  short  an 
interval  between  its  birth  and  that  of  the  previous  child  has  been  shown, 
for  instance,  by  Dr.  R.  J.  Ewart  ("  The  Influence  of  Parental  Age  on 
Offspring,"  Eugenics  Review,  October,  1911).  He  has  found  at  Middles- 
brough that  children  born  at  an  interval  of  less  than  two  years  after 
the  birth  of  the  previous  child  still  show  at  the  age  of  six  a  notable 
deficiency  in  height,  weight,  and  intelligence,  when  compared  with 
children  born  after  a  longer  interval,  or  with  first-born  children. 


INTRODUCTION  27 

born,  a  care  which  otherwise  would  become  an  intolerable 
burden.  It  is  only  by  such  selection  that  we  can  work 
towards  the  elimination  of  those  stocks  which  fail  to 
help  us  in  the  tasks  of  our  civilization  to-day.  It  is 
only  by  such  selection  that  we  can  hope  to  fortify  the 
stocks  that  are  fitted  for  these  tasks.  More  than  two 
centuries  ago  Steele  playfully  suggested  that  "  one  might 
wear  any  passion  out  of  a  family  by  culture,  as  skilful 
gardeners  blot  a  colour  out  of  a  tulip  that  hurts  its 
beauty."  *  The  progress  of  civilization,  with  the  self- 
control  it  involves,  has  made  it  possible  to  accept  this 
suggestion  seriously.2  The  difference  is  that  whereas 
the  flowers  of  our  gardens  are  bettered  only  by  the 
control  of  an  arbitrary  external  will  and  intelligence, 
our  human  flowers  may  be  bettered  by  an  intelligence 
and  will,  a  finer  sense  of  responsibility,  developed  within 
themselves.  Thus  it  is  that  human  culture  renders 
possible  Social  Hygiene. 

Three  centuries  ago  an  inspired  monk  set  forth  his 
ideal  of  an  ennobled  world  in  The  City  of  the  Sun.  Cam- 
panula wrote  that  prophetic  book  in  prison.  But  his 
spirit  was  unfettered,  and  his  conception  of  human 
society,   though   in   daring   it   outruns   all   the   visions 

1  Tatler,  Vol.  II,  No.  175,  1709. 

2  "Write  Man  for  Primula,  and  the  stage  of  the  world  for  that 
of  the  greenhouse,"  says  Professor  Bateson  [Biological  Fact  and  the 
Structure  of  Society,  1912,  p.  9),  "  and  I  believe  that  with  a  few  genera- 
tions of  experimental  breeding  we  should  acquire  the  power  similarly 
to  determine  how  the  varieties  of  men  should  be  represented  in  the 
generations  that  succeed."  But  Bateson  proceeds  to  point  out  that  our 
knowledge  is  still  very  inadequate,  and  he  is  opposed  to  eugenics 
by  Act  of  Parliament. 


28  THE  TASK  OF  SOCIAL  HYGIENE 

we  may  compare  it  with,  is  yet  on  the  lines  along  which 
our  civilization  lies.  In  the  City  of  the  Sun  not  only 
was  the  nobility  of  work,  even  mechanical  work, — which 
Plato  rejected  and  More  was  scarcely  conscious  of, — 
for  the  first  time  recognized,  but  the  supreme  impulse 
of  procreation  was  regarded  as  a  sacred  function,  to  be 
exercised  in  the  light  of  scientific  knowledge.  It  was  a 
public  rather  than  a  private  duty,  because  it  concerned 
the  interests  of  the  race  ;  only  valorous  and  high-spirited 
men  ought  to  procreate,  and  it  was  held  that  the  father 
should  bear  the  punishments  inflicted  on  the  son  for 
faults  due  to  his  failure  by  defects  in  generation.1  More- 
over, while  unions  not  for  the  end  of  procreation  were 
in  the  City  of  the  Sun  left  to  the  judgment  of  the  in- 
dividuals alone  concerned,  it  was  not  so  with  unions 
for  the  end  of  procreation.  These  were  arranged  by 
the  "  great  Master,"  a  physician,  aided  by  the  chief 
matrons,  and  the  public  exercises  of  the  youths  and 
maidens,  performed  in  a  state  of  nakedness,  were  of 
assistance  in  enabling  unions  to  be  fittingly  made.  No 
eugenist  under  modern  conditions  of  life  proposes  that 
unions  should  be  arranged  by  a  supreme  medical  public 
official,  though  he  might  possibly  regard  such  an  official, 
if  divested  of  any  compulsory  powers,  a  kind  of  public 
trustee  for  the  race,  as  a  useful  institution.  But  it  is 
easy  to  see  that  the  luminous  conception  of  racial 
betterment  which,  since  Galton  rendered  it  practicable, 
is  now  inspiring  social  progress,  was  already  burning 
brightly  three  centuries  ago  in  the  brain  of  this  imprisoned 

1  E.  Solmi,  La  Citta  del  Sole  di  Campanella,  1904,  p.  xxxiv. 


INTRODUCTION  29 

Italian  monk.  Just  as  Thomas  More  has  been  called 
the  father  of  modern  Socialism,  so  Campanella  may  be 
said  to  be  the  prophet  of  modern  Eugenics. 

By  "  Eugenics  "  is  meant  the  scientific  study  of 
all  the  agencies  by  which  the  human  race  may  be  im- 
proved, and  the  effort  to  give  practical  effect  to 
those  agencies  by  conscious  and  deliberate  action  in 
favour  of  better  breeding.  Even  among  savages  eugenics 
may  be  said  to  exist,  if  only  in  the  crude  and  unscientific 
practice  of  destroying  feeble,  deformed,  and  abnormal 
infants  at  birth.  In  civilized  ages  elaborate  and  more 
or  less  scientific  attempts  are  made  by  breeders  of  animals 
to  improve  the  stocks  they  breed,  and  their  efforts  have 
been  crowned  with  much  success.  The  study  of  the 
same  methods  in  their  bearing  on  man  proceeded  out 
of  the  Darwinian  school  of  biology,  and  is  especially 
associated  with  the  great  name  of  Sir  Francis  Galton, 
the  cousin  of  Darwin.  Galton  first  proposed  to  call 
this  study  "  Stirpiculture."  Under  that  name  it  in- 
spired Noyes,  the  founder  of  the  Oneida  Community, 
with  the  impulse  to  carry  it  into  practice  with  a  thorough- 
ness and  daring — indeed  a  similarity  of  method — which 
caused  Oneida  almost  to  rival  the  City  of  the  Sun. 
But  the  scheme  of  Noyes,  excellent  as  in  some  respects  it 
was  as  an  experiment,  outran  both  scientific  knowledge 
and  the  spirit  of  the  times.  It  was  not  countenanced 
by  Galton,  who  never  had  any  wish  to  offend  general 
sentiment,  but  sought  to  win  it  over  to  his  side,  and 
before  1880  the  Oneida  Community  was  brought  to 
an  end  in  consequence  of  the  antagonism  it  aroused. 


30  THE  TASK  OF  SOCIAL  HYGIENE 

Galton  continued  to  develop  his  conceptions  slowly 
and  cautiously,  and  in  1883,  in  his  Inquiries  into  Human 
Faculty,  he  abandoned  the  term  "  Stirpiculture  "  and 
devised  the  term  "  Eugenics,"  which  is  now  generally 
adopted  to  signify  Good  Breeding. 

Galton  was  quite  well  aware  that  the  improved  breeding 
of  men  is  a  very  different  matter  from  the  improved 
breeding  of  animals,  requiring  a  different  knowledge 
and  a  different  method,  so  that  the  ridicule  which  has 
sometimes  been  ignorantly  flung  at  Eugenics  failed  to 
touch  him.  It  would  be  clearly  undesirable  to  breed 
men,  as  animals  are  bred,  for  single  points  at  the  sacrifice 
of  other  points,  even  if  we  were  in  a  position  to  breed 
men  from  outside.  Human  breeding  must  proceed  from 
impulses  that  arise,  voluntarily,  in  human  brains  and 
wills,  and  are  carried  out  with  a  human  sense  of  personal 
responsibility.  Galton  believed  that  the  first  need  was  the 
need  of  knowledge  in  these  matters.  He  was  not  anxious 
to  invoke  legislation.1  The  compulsory  presentation  of 
certificates  of  health  and  good  breeding  as  a  preliminary 
to  marriage  forms  no  part  of  Eugenics,  nor  is  compulsory 
sterilization  a  demand  made  by  any  reasonable  eugenist. 
Certainly  the  custom  of  securing  certificates  of  health 
and  ability  is  excellent,  not  only  as  a  preliminary  to 
marriage,  but  as  a  general  custom.  Certainly,  also, 
there   are   cases   in  which   sterilization   is   desirable,   if 

1  Only  a  year  before  his  death  Galton  wrote  (Preface  to  Essays  in 
Eugenics)  :  "  The  power  by  which  Eugenic  reform  must  chiefly  be 
effected  is  that  of  Popular  Opinion,  which  is  amply  strong  enough  for 
that  purpose  whenever  it  shall  be  roused." 


INTRODUCTION  31 

voluntarily  accepted.1  But  neither  certification  nor 
sterilization  should  be  compulsory.  They  only  have 
their  value  if  they  are  intelligent  and  deliberate,  springing 
out  of  a  widened  and  enlightened  sense  of  personal 
responsibility  to  society  and  to  the  race. 

Eugenics  constitutes  the  link  between  the  Social 
Reform  of  the  past,  painfully  struggling  to  improve  the 
conditions  of  life,  and  the  Social  Hygiene  of  the  future, 
which  is  authorized  to  deal  adequately  with  the  con- 
ditions of  life  because  it  has  its  hands  on  the  sources 
of  life.  On  this  plane  we  are  able  to  concentrate  our 
energies  on  the  finer  ends  of  life,  because  we  may  reason- 
ably expect  to  be  no  longer  hampered  by  the  ever- 
increasing  burdens  which  were  placed  upon  us  by  the 
failure  to  control  life  ;  while  the  more  we  succeed  in 
our  efforts  to  purify  and  strengthen  life,  the  more  mag- 
nificent become  the  tasks  we  may  reasonably  hope  to 
attempt  and  compass. 

A  problem  which  is  often  and  justly  cited  as  one  to 
be  settled  by  Eugenics  is  that  presented  by  the  existence 
among  us  of  the  large  class  of  the  feeble-minded.  No 
doubt  there  are  some  who  would  regret  the  disappearance 
of  the  feeble-minded  from  our  midst.  The  philosophies 
of  the  Bergsonian  type,  which  to-day  prevail  so  widely, 
place  intuition  above  reason,  and  the  "  pure  fool "  has 

1  It  may  perhaps  be  necessary  to  remark  that  by  sterilization  is  here 
meant,  not  castration,  but,  in  the  male  vasectomy  (and  a  corresponding 
operation  in  the  female),  a  simple  and  harmless  operation  which  in- 
volves no  real  mutilation  and  no  loss  of  power  beyond  that  of 
procreation.  See  on  this  and  related  points,  Havelock  Ellis,  Studies  in 
the  Psychology  oj  Sex,  Vol.  VI,  "  Sex  in  Relation  to  Society,"  chap.  xn. 


32  THE  TASK  OF  SOCIAL  HYGIENE 

sometimes  been  enshrined  and  idolized.  But  we  may 
remember  that  Eugenics  can  never  prevent  absolutely 
the  occurrence  of  feeble-minded  persons,  even  in  the 
extreme  degree  of  the  imbecile  and  the  idiot.1  They 
come  within  the  range  of  variation,  by  the  same  right 
as  genius  so  comes.  We  cannot,  it  may  be,  prevent  the 
occurrence  of  such  persons,  but  we  can  prevent  them 
from  being  the  founders  of  families  tending  to  resemble 
themselves.  And  in  so  doing,  it  will  be  agreed  by  most 
people,  we  shall  be  effecting  a  task  of  immense  benefit 
to  society  and  the  race. 

Feeble-mindedness  is  largely  handed  on  by  heredity. 
It  was  formerly  supposed  that  idiocy  and  feeble-minded- 
ness are  mainly  due  to  environmental  conditions,  to 
the  drink,  depravity,  general  disease,  or  lack  of  nutrition 
of  the  parents,  and  there  is  no  doubt  an  element  of  truth 
in  that  view.  But  serious  and  frequent  as  are  the  results 
of  bad  environment  and  acquired  disease  in  the  parent- 
age of  the  feeble-minded,  they  do  not  form  the  funda- 
mental factor  in  the  production  of  the  feeble-minded.2 

1  The  term  "  feeble-minded  "  may  be  used  generally  to  cover  all 
degrees  of  mental  weakness.  In  speaking  a  little  more  precisely,  how- 
ever, we  have  to  recognize  three  main  degrees  of  congenital  mental 
weakness  :  feeble-mindedness,  in  which  with  care  and  supervision  it  is 
possible  to  work  and  earn  a  livelihood  ;  imbecility,  in  which  the  subject 
is  barely  able  to  look  after  himself,  and  sometimes  only  has  enough 
intelligence  to  be  mischievous  (the  moral  imbecile)  ;  and  idiocy,  the 
lowest  depth  of  all,  in  which  the  subject  has  no  intelligence  and  no 
ability  to  look  after  himself.  More  elaborate  classifications  are  some- 
times proposed.  The  method  of  Binet  and  Simon  renders  possible 
a  fairly  exact  measurement  of  feeble-mindedness. 

2  Mott  (Archives  of  Neurology  and  Psychiatry,  Vol.  V,  1911)  accepts 
the  view  that  in  some  cases  feeble-mindedness  is  simply  a  form  of 
congenital  syphilis,  but  he  points  out  that  feeble-mindedness  abounds 


INTRODUCTION  33 

Feeble-mindedness  is  essentially  a  germinal  variation, 
belonging  to  the  same  large  class  as  all  other  biological 
variations,  occurring,  for  the  most  part,  in  the  first 
place  spontaneously,  but  strongly  tending  to  be  in- 
herited. It  thus  resembles  congenital  cataract,  deaf- 
mutism,  the  susceptibility  to  tuberculous  infection,  etc.1 
Exact  investigation  is  now  showing  that  feeble- 
mindedness is  passed  on  from  parent  to  child  to  an 
enormous  extent.  Some  years  ago  Ashby,  speaking 
from  a  large  experience  in  the  North  of  England,  esti- 
mated that  at  least  seventy-five  per  cent  of  feeble- 
minded children  are  born  with  an  inherited  tendency 

in  many  rural  districts  where  syphilis,  as  well  as  alcoholism,  is  very 
rare,  and  concludes  by  emphasizing  the  influence  of  heredity  ;  the 
prevalence  of  feeble-mindedness  in  these  rural  districts  is  thus  due 
to  the  fact  that  the  mentally  and  physically  fit  have  emigrated  to  the 
great  industrial  centres,  leaving  the  unfit  to  procreate  the  race. 

1  "  Whether  germinal  variations,"  remarked  Dr.  R.  J.  Ryle  at  a 
Conference  on  Feeble-mindedness  (British  Medical  Journal,  October  3, 
191 1),  "  be  expressed  by  cleft  palate,  cataract,  or  cerebral  deficiency  of 
the  pyramidal  cells  in  the  brain  cortex,  they  may  be  produced,  and, 
when  once  produced,  they  are  reproduced  as  readily  as  the  perfected 
structure  of  the  face  or  eye  or  brain,  if  the  gametes  which  contain  these 
potentialities  unite  to  form  the  ovum.  But  Nature  is  not  only  the 
producer.  Given  a  fair  field  and  no  favour,  natural  selection  would 
ieave  no  problem  of  the  unfit  to  perplex  the  mind  of  man  who  looks 
before  and  after.  This  we  know  cannot  be,  and  we  know,  too,  that 
we  have  no  longer  the  excuse  of  ignorance  to  cover  the  neglect  of  the 
new  duties  which  belong  to  the  present  epoch  of  civilization.  We  know 
now  that  we  have  to  deal  with  a  growing  group  in  our  community 
who  demand  permanent  care  and  control  as  well  for  their  own  sakes 
as  for  the  welfare  of  the  community.  All  are  now  agreed  on  the  general 
principle  of  segregation,  but  it  is  true  that  something  more  than  this 
should  be  forthcoming.  The  difficulties  of  theory  are  clearing  up  as 
our  wider  view  obtains  a  firmer  grasp  of  our  material,  but  the  difficul- 
ties of  practice  are  still  before  us."  These  remarks  correspond  with  the 
general  results  reached  by  the  Royal  Commission  on  the  Feeble-minded, 
which  issued  its  voluminous  facts  and  conclusions  in  1908, 


34  THE  TASK  OF  SOCIAL  HYGIENE 

to  mental  defect.     More  precise  investigation  has  since 
shown  that  this  estimate  was  under  the  mark.     Tred- 
gold,  who  in  England  has  most  carefully  studied  the 
heredity    of    the    feeble-minded,1    found    that    in    over 
eighty-two  per  cent  cases  there  is  a  bad  nervous  in- 
heritance.    In  a  large  number  of  cases  the  bad  heredity 
was  associated  with  alcoholism  or  consumption  in  the 
parentage,  but  only  in  a  small  proportion  of  cases  (about 
seven  per  cent)   was  it   probable  that   alcoholism   and 
consumption  alone,  and  usually  combined,  had  sufficed 
to    produce    the    defective    condition    of    the    children, 
while  environmental   conditions  only  produced  mental 
defect   in  ten  per  cent   cases.2     Heredity  is  the  chief 
cause  of  feeble-mindedness,  and  a  normal  child  is  never 
born  of  two  feeble-minded   parents.    The  very  thorough 
investigation  of  the  heredity  of  the  feeble-minded  which 
is  now  being  carried  on  at  the  institution  for  their  care 
at   Vineland,    New   Jersey,    shows   even   more   decisive 
results.     By  making  careful  pedigrees  of  the  families 
to  which  the  inmates  at  Vineland  belong  it  is  seen  that 
in  a  large  proportion  of  cases  feeble-mindedness  is  handed 
on    from    generation    to    generation,    and    is    traceable 
through  three  generations,   though  it  sometimes  skips 

1  See,  for  instance,  A.  F.  Tredgold,  Mental  Deficiency,  1908. 

2  The  investigation  of  Bezzola  showing  that  the  maxima  in  the  con- 
ception of  idiots  occur  at  carnival  time,  and  especially  at  the  vintage, 
has  been  held  (especially  by  Forel)  to  indicate  that  alcoholism  of  the 
parents  at  conception  causes  idiocy  in  the  offspring.  It  may  be  so. 
But  it  may  also  be  that  the  licence  of  these  periods  enables  the  defective 
members  of  the  community  to  secure  an  amount  of  sexual  activity 
which  they  would  be  debarred  from  under  normal  conditions.  In  that 
case  the  alcoholism  would  merely  liberate,  and  not  create,  the  idiocy- 
producing  mechanism. 


INTRODUCTION  35 

a  generation.  In  one  family  of  three  hundred  and  nine- 
teen persons,  one  hundred  and  nineteen  were  known  to 
be  feeble-minded,  and  only  forty-two  known  to  be  normal. 
The  families  tended  to  be  large,  sometimes  very  large, 
most  of  them  in  many  cases  dying  in  infancy  or  growing 
up  weak-minded.1 

Not  only  is  feeble-mindedness  inherited,  and  to  a 
much  greater  degree  than  has  hitherto  been  suspected 
even  by  expert  authorities,  but  the  feeble-minded 
thus  tend  (though,  as  Davenport  and  Weeks  have  found, 
not  invariably)  to  have  a  larger  number  of  children  than 
normal  people.  That  indeed,  we  might  expect,  apart 
altogether  from  the  question  of  any  innate  fertility.  The 
feeble-minded  have  no  forethought  and  no  self-restraint. 
They  are  not  adequately  capable  of  resisting  their 
own  impulses  or  the  solicitations  of  others,  and  they  are 
unable  to  understand  adequately  the  motives  which  guide 
the  conduct  of  ordinary  people.  The  average  number 
of  children  of  feeble-minded  people  seems  to  be  frequently 
about  one-third  more  than  in  normal  families,  and  is 
sometimes  much  greater.  Dr.  Ettie  Sayer,  when  in- 
vestigating for  the  London  County  Council  the  family 
histories  of  one  hundred  normal  families  and  one  hundred 
families  in  which  mentally  defective  children  had  been 
found,  ascertained  that  the  families  of  the  latter  averaged 
76  children,  while  in  the  normal  families  they  averaged  5. 
Tredgold,  specially  investigating  150  feeble-minded  cases, 
found  that  they  belonged  to  families  in  which  1269 
children  had  been  born,  that  is  to  say  7-3  per  family, 

1  Godden,  Eugenics  Review,  April,  191 1. 


36  THE  TASK  OF  SOCIAL  HYGIENE 

or,  counting  still-born  children,  8-4.  Nearly  two-thirds 
of  these  abnormally  large  families  were  mentally  defective, 
many  showing  a  tendency  to  disease,  pauperism,  crimin- 
ality, or  else  to  early  death.1 

Here,  indeed,  we  have  a  counterbalancing  influence, 
for,  in  the  large  families  of  the  feeble-minded,  there  is  a 
correspondingly  large  infantile  mortality.  A  considerable 
proportion  of  Tredgold's  group  of  children  were  born  dead, 
and  a  very  large  number  died  early.  Eichholz,  again, 
found  that,  in  one  group  of  defective  families,  about 
sixty  per  cent  of  the  children  died  young.  That  is 
probably  an  unusually  high  proportion,  and  in  Eichholz's 
cases  it  seems  to  have  been  associated  with  very  un- 
usually large  families,  but  the  infant  mortality  is  always 
very  high. 

This  large  early  mortality  of  the  offspring  of  the 
feeble-minded  is,  however,  very  far  from  settling  the 
question  of  the  disposal  of  the  mentally  defective,  or 
we  should  not  find  families  of  them  propagated  from 
generation  to  generation.  The  large  number  who  die 
early  merely  serves,  roughly  speaking,  to  reduce  the 
size  of  the  abnormal  family  to  the  size  of  a  normal 
family,  and  some  authorities  consider  that  it  scarcely 
suffices  to  do  this,  for  we  must  remember  that   there 

1  Feeble-mindedness  and  the  other  allied  variations  are  not  always 
exactly  repeated  in  inheritance.  They  may  be  transmuted  in  passing 
from  father  to  son,  an  epileptic  father,  for  instance,  having  a  feeble- 
minded child.  These  relationships  of  feeble-mindedness  have  been 
clearly  brought  out  in  an  important  investigation  by  Davenport  and 
Weeks  (Journal  of  Nervous  and  Mental  Disease,  November,  191 1), 
who  have  for  the  first  time  succeeded  in  obtaining  a  large  number 
of  really  thorough  and  precise  pedigrees  of  such  cases. 


INTRODUCTION  37 

is  a  considerable  mortality  even  in  the  so-called 
normal  family  during  early  life.  Even  when  there 
is  no  abnormal  fertility  in  the  defective  family 
we  may  still  have  to  recognize  that,  as  Davenport 
and  Weeks  argue,  their  defectiveness  is  intensified  by 
heredity.  Moreover,  we  have  to  consider  the  social 
disorder  and  the  heavy  expense  which  accompany 
the  large  infantile  mortality.  Illegitimacy  is  frequently 
the  result  of  feeble-mindedness,  since  feeble-minded 
women  are  peculiarly  unable  to  resist  temptation.  A 
great  number  of  such  women  are  continually  coming 
into  the  workhouses  and  giving  birth  to  illegitimate 
children  whom  they  are  unable  to  support,  and  who 
often  never  become  capable  of  supporting  themselves, 
but  in  their  turn  tend  to  produce  a  new  feeble-minded 
generation,  more  especially  since  the  men  who  are 
attracted  to  these  feeble-minded  women  are  themselves — 
according  to  the  generally  recognized  tendency  of  the 
abnormal  to  be  attracted  to  the  abnormal — feeble- 
minded or  otherwise  mentally  defective.  There  is  thus 
generated  not  only  a  heavy  financial  burden,  but  also 
a  perpetual  danger  to  society,  and,  it  may  well  be,  a 
serious  depreciation  in  the  quality  of  the  community.1 

It  is  not  only  in  themselves  that  the  feeble-minded 
are  a  burden  on  the  present  generation  and  a  menace 

1  It  may  be  as  well  to  point  out  once  more  that  the  possibility  of  such 
limited  depreciation  must  not  be  construed  into  the  statement  that  there 
has  been  any  general  "  degeneration  of  the  race."  It  may  be  added  that 
the  notion  that  the  golden  age  lay  in  the  past,  and  that  our  own  age  is  de- 
generate is  not  confined  to  a  few  biometricians  of  to-day ;  it  has  com- 
mended itself  to  uncritical  minds  in  all  ages,  even  the  greatest,  as  far  back 
as  we  can  go.  Montesquieu  referred  to  this  common  notion  (and  attempted 


38  THE  TASK  OF  SOCIAL  HYGIENE 

to  future  generations.  In  large  measure  they  form 
the  reservoir  from  which  the  predatory  classes  are 
recruited.  This  is,  for  instance,  the  case  as  regards 
prostitutes.  Feeble-minded  girls,  of  fairly  high  grade, 
may  often  be  said  to  be  predestined  to  prostitution 
if  left  to  themselves,  not  because  they  are  vicious,  but 
because  they  are  weak  and  have  little  power  of  resistance. 
They  cannot  properly  weigh  their  actions  against  the 
results  of  their  actions,  and  even  if  they  are  intelligent 
enough  to  do  that,  they  are  still  too  weak  to  regulate 
their  actions  accordingly.  Moreover,  even  when,  as 
often  happens  among  the  high-grade  feeble-minded, 
they  are  quite  able  and  willing  to  work,  after  they  have 
lost  their  "  respectability  "  by  having  a  child,  the  oppor- 
tunities for  work  become  more  restricted,  and  they  drift 
into  prostitution.  It  has  been  found  that  of  nearly 
15,000  women  who  passed  through  Magdalen  Homes 
in  England,  over  2500,  or  more  than  sixteen  per  cent — 
and  this  is  probably  an  under-estimate — were  definitely 
feeble-minded.  The  women  belonging  to  this  feeble- 
minded group  were  known  to  have  added  1000  illegitimate 
children  to  the  population.  In  Germany  Bonhoeffer 
found  among  190  prostitutes  who  passed  through  a 
prison   that   102   were   hereditarily   degenerate   and   53 

to  explain  it)  in  his  Pensees  Diver ses  :  "  Men  have  such  a  bad  opinion 
of  themselves,"  he  adds,  "  that  they  have  believed  not  only  that  their 
minds  and  souls  were  degenerate,  but  even  their  bodies,  and  that  they 
were  not  so  tall  as  the  men  of  previous  ages."  It  is  thus  quite  logically 
that  we  arrive  at  the  belief  that  when  mankind  first  appeared,  "  there 
were  giants  on  the  earth  in  those  days,"  and  that  Adam  lived  to  the 
age  of  nine  hundred  and  thirty.  Evidently  no  syndromes  of  degener- 
escence  there  ! 


INTRODUCTION  39 

feeble-minded.  This  would  be  an  over-estimate  as 
regards  average  prostitutes,  though  the  offences  were 
no  doubt  usually  trivial,  but  in  any  case  the  association 
between  prostitution  and  feeble-mindedness  is  intimate. 
Everywhere,  there  can  be  no  doubt,  the  ranks  of  prosti- 
tution contain  a  considerable  proportion  of  women  who 
were,  at  the  very  outset,  in  some  slight  degree  feeble- 
minded, mentally  and  morally  a  little  blunted  through 
some  taint  of  inheritance.1 

Criminality,  again,  is  associated  with  feeble-minded- 
ness in  the  most  intimate  way.  Not  only  do  criminals 
tend  to  belong  to  large  families,  but  the  families  that 
produce  feeble-minded  offspring  also  produce  criminals, 
while  a  certain  degree  of  feeble-mindedness  is  extremely 
common  among  criminals,  and  the  most  hopeless  and 
typical,  though  fortunately  rare,  kind  of  criminal, 
frequently  termed  a  "  moral  imbecile,"  is  nothing  more 
than  a  feeble-minded  person  whose  defect  is  shown  not 
so  much  in  his  intelligence  as  in  his  feelings  and  his 
conduct.  Sir  H.  B.  Donkin,  who  speaks  with  authority 
on  this  matter,  estimates  that,  though  it  is  difficult 
to  obtain  the  early  history  of  the  criminals  who  enter 
English  prisons,  about  twenty  per  cent  of  them  are 
of   primarily   defective   mental   capacity.      This   would 

1  The  Superintendent  of  a  large  State  School  for  delinquent  girls  in 
America  (as  quoted  in  the  Chicago  Vice  Commission's  Report  on  The 
Social  Evil  in  Chicago,  p.  229)  says  :  "  The  girls  who  come  to  us  pos- 
sessed of  normal  brain  power,  or  not  infected  with  venereal  disease, 
we  look  upon  as  a  prize  indeed,  and  we  seldom  fail  to  make  a  woman 
worth  while  of  a  really  normal  girl,  whatever  her  environment  has  been. 
But  we  have  failed  in  numberless  cases  where  the  environment  has  been 
all  right,  but  the  girl  was  born  wrong." 


40  THE  TASK  OF  SOCIAL  HYGIENE 

mean  that  every  year  some  35,000  feeble-minded  persons 
are  sent  to  English  prisons  as  "  criminals."  The  tendency 
of  criminals  to  belong  to  the  feeble-minded  class  is 
indeed  every  day  becoming  more  clearly  recognized. 
At  Pentonville,  putting  aside  prisoners  who  were  too 
mentally  affected  to  be  fit  for  prison  discipline,  eighteen 
per  cent  of  the  adult  prisoners  and  forty  per  cent  of  the 
juvenile  offenders  were  found  to  be  feeble-minded.  This 
includes  only  those  whose  defect  is  fairly  obvious,  and 
is  not  the  result  of  methodical  investigation.  It  is 
certain  that  such  methodical  inquiry  would  reveal 
a  very  large  proportion  of  cases  of  less  obvious  mental 
defect.  Thus  the  systematic  examination  of  a  number 
of  delinquent  children  in  an  Industrial  School  showed 
that  in  seventy-five  per  cent  cases  they  were  defective 
as  compared  to  normal  children,  and  that  their  defective- 
ness was  probably  inborn.  Even  the  possession  of  a 
considerable  degree  of  cunning  is  no  evidence  against 
mental  defect,  but  may  rather  be  said  to  be  a  sign  of  it, 
for  it  shows  an  intelligence  unable  to  grasp  the  wider 
relations  of  life,  and  concentrated  on  the  gratification 
of  petty  and  immediate  desires.  Thus  it  happens  that 
the  cunning  of  criminals  is  frequently  associated  with 
almost  inconceivable  stupidity.1 

Closely  related  to  the  great  feeble-minded  class, 
and  from  time  to  time  falling  into  crime,  are  the  inmates 
of  workhouses,  tramps,  and  the  unemployable.  The 
so-called  "  able-bodied  "  inmates  of  the  workhouses 
are  frequently  found,  on  medical  examination,  to  be, 

1  See  e.g.  Havelock  Ellis,  The  Criminal,  4th  ed.,  1910,  chap  iv. 


INTRODUCTION  41 

in  more  than  fifty  per  cent  cases,  mentally  defective, 
equally  so  whether  they  are  men  or  women.  Tramps, 
by  nature  and  profession,  who  overlap  the  workhouse 
population,  and  are  estimated  to  number  20,000  to  30,000 
in  England  and  Wales,  when  the  genuine  unemployed 
are  eliminated,  are  everywhere  found  to  be  a  very  de- 
generate class,  among  whom  the  most  mischievous  kinds 
of  feeble-mindedness  and  mental  perversion  prevail. 
Inebriates,  the  people  who  are  chronically  and  helplessly 
given  to  drink,  largely  belong  to  the  same  great  family, 
and  do  not  so  much  become  feeble-minded  because 
they  drink,  but  possess  the  tendency  to  drink  because 
they  have  a  strain  of  feeble-mindedness  from  birth. 
Branthwaite,  the  chief  English  authority  on  this  question, 
finds  that  of  the  inebriates  who  come  to  his  notice, 
putting  aside  altogether  the  group  of  actually  insane 
persons,  about  sixty-three  per  cent  are  mentally  defective, 
and  scarcely  more  than  a  third  of  the  whole  number  of 
average  mental  capacity.  It  is  evident  that  these  people, 
even  if  restored  to  sobriety,  would  still  retain  their  more 
or  less  inborn  defectiveness,  and  would  remain  equally 
unfit  to  become  the  parents  of  the  coming  generation. 

These  are  the  kind  of  people — tramps,  prostitutes, 
paupers,  criminals,  inebriates,  all  tending  to  be  born 
a  little  defective — who  largely  make  up  the  great  de- 
generate families  whose  histories  are  from  time  to  time 
recorded.  Such  a  family  was  that  of  the  Jukes  in  America, 
who,  in  the  course  of  five  generations,  by  constantly 
intermarrying  with  bad  stocks,  produced  709  known 
descendants  who  were  on  the  whole  unfit  for  society, 


42         THE   TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

and  have  been  a  constant  danger  and  burden  to  society.1 
A  still  larger  family  of  the  same  kind,  more  recently 
studied  in  Germany,  consisted  of  834  known  persons, 
all  descended  from  a  drunken  vagabond  woman,  probably 
somewhat  feeble-minded  but  physically  vigorous.  The 
great  majority  of  these  descendants  were  prostitutes, 
tramps,  paupers,  and  criminals  (some  of  them  murderers), 
and  the  direct  cost  in  money  to  the  Prussian  State 
for  the  keep  and  care  of  this  woman  and  her  family 
has  been  a  quarter  of  a  million  pounds.  \  Yet  another 
such  family  is  that  of  the  "  Zeros."  Three  centuries 
ago  they  were  highly  respectable  people,  living  in  a 
Swiss  valley.  But  they  intermarried  with  an  insane 
stock,  and  subsequently  married  other  women  of  an 
unbalanced  nature.  In  recent  times  310  members  of 
this  family  have  been  studied,  and  it  is  found  that 
vagrancy,  feeble-mindedness,  mental  troubles,  criminality, 
pauperism,  immorality  are,  as  it  may  be  termed,  their 
patrimony.2 

These  classes,  with  their  tendency  to  weak-minded- 
ness, their  inborn  laziness,  lack  of  vitality,  and  un- 
fitness for  organized  activity,  contain  the  people  who 
complain  that  they  are  starving  for  want  of  work,  though 
they  will  never  perform  any  work  that  is  given  them. 

1  R.  L.  Dugdale,  The  Jukes,  4th  ed.,  1910.  It  is  noteworthy  that 
Dugdale,  who  wrote  nearly  forty  years  ago,  was  concerned  to  prove 
the  influence  of  bad  environment  rather  than  of  bad  heredity.  At  that 
time  the  significance  of  heredity  was  scarcely  yet  conceived.  It  remains 
true,  however,  that  bad  heredity  and  bad  environment  constantly 
work  together  for  evil. 

2  Jorger,  Archiv  fiir  Rassen-und  Gesellschafts-Biologie,  1905,  p.  294. 
Criminal  families  are  also  recorded  by  Aubry,  La  Contagion  du  Meutre. 

\ 


INTRODUCTION  43 

\   Feeble-mindedness   is  an  absolute  dead-weight   on  the 
Wace.     It  is  an  evil  that  is  unmitigated.     The  heavy 
and  complicated  social  burdens  and  injuries  it  inflicts 
on   the   present   generation   are  without   compensation, 
while  the  unquestionable  fact  that  in  any  degree  it  is 
highly    inheritable    renders    it    a    deteriorating    poison 
to   the   race ;   it   depreciates   the   quality  of   a  people. 
The  task  of  Social  Hygiene  which  lies  before  us  cannot 
be  attempted  by  this  feeble  folk.     Not  only  can  they 
not  share  it,  but  they  impede  it ;  their  clumsy  hands 
are  for  ever  becoming  entangled  in  the  delicate  mechanism 
of   our   modern   civilization.      Their   very   existence   is 
itself  an  impediment.     Apart  altogether  from  the  gross 
and   obvious   burden   in   money   and   social   machinery 
which  the  protection  they  need,  and  the  protection  we 
need   against   them,   casts  upon  the  community,1  they 
dilute  the  spiritual  quality  of  the  community  to  a  degree 
which  makes  it  an  inapt  medium  for  any  high  achieve- 
ment)  It  matters  little  how  small  a  city  or  a  nation 
is,  provided  the  spirit  of  its  people  is  great.     It  is  the 
smallest  communities  that   have  most  powerfully  and 
most   immortally   raised   the   level   of   civilization,   and 
surrounded  the  human  species   (in  its  own  eyes)   with 
a  halo  of  glory  which  belongs  to  no  other  species.    Only 
a  handful  of  people,  hemmed  in  on  every  side,  created 
the  eternal  radiance  of  Athens,  and  the  fame   of   the 
little  city  of  Florence  may  outlive  that   of  the  whole 

1  Even  during  school  life  this  burden  is  serious.  Mr.  Bodey,  In- 
spector of  Schools,  states  that  the  defective  school  child  costs  three 
times  as  much  as  the  ordinary  school  child. 


44  THE  TASK  OF  SOCIAL  HYGIENE 

kingdom  of  Italy.  To  realize  this  truth  in  the  future 
of  civilization  is  one  of  the  first  tasks  of  Social  Hygiene.1 
It  is  here  that  the  ideals  of  Eugenics  may  be  expected 
to  work  fruitfully.  To  insist  upon  the  power  of  heredity 
was  once  considered  to  indicate  a  fatalistic  pessimism. 
It  wears  a  very  different  aspect  nowadays,  in  the  light 
of  Eugenics.  "  To  the  eugenist,"  as  Davenport  observes, 
"  heredity  stands  as  the  one  great  hope  of  the  human 
race :  its  saviour  from  imbecility,  poverty,  disease,  im- 
morality." 2  We  cannot,  indeed,  desire  any  compulsory 
elimination  of  the  unfit  or  any  centrally  regulated  breeding 
of  the  fit.3  Such  notions  are  idle,  and  even  the  mere  fact 
that  unbalanced  brains  may  air  them  abroad  tends  to 
impair  the  legitimate  authority  of  eugenic  ideals.  The 
two  measures  which  are  now  commonly  put  forward 
for  the  attainment  of  eugenic  ends — health  certificates 
as    a    legal    preliminary   to    marriage    and    the    steri- 

1  I  have  set  forth  these  considerations  more  fully  in  a  popular  form  in 
The  Problem  of  the  Regeneration  of  the  Race,  the  first  of  a  series  of  "  New 
Tracts  for  the  Times,"  issued  under  the  auspices  of  the  National  Council 
of  Public  Morals. 

2  C.  B.  Davenport,  "  Euthenics  and  Eugenics,"  Popular  Science 
Monthly,  January,  191 1. 

3  The  use  of  the  terms  "  fit  "  and  "  unfit  "  in  a  eugenic  sense  has 
been  criticized.  It  is  said,  for  instance,  that  in  a  bad  environment 
it  may  be  precisely  the  defective  classes  who  are  most "  fit  "  to  survive. 
It  is  quite  true  that  these  terms  are  not  well  adapted  to  resist  hyper- 
critical attack.  The  persistence  with  which  they  are  employed  seems, 
however,  to  indicate  a  certain  "  survival  of  the  fittest."  The  terms 
"  worthy  "  and  "  unworthy,"  which  some  would  prefer  to  substitute, 
are  unsatisfactory,  for  they  have  moral  associations  which  are  mis- 
leading. Galton  spoke  of  "  civic  worth  "  in  this  connection,  and  very 
occasionally  used  the  term  "  worthy  "  (  with  inverted  commas),  but 
he  was  careful  to  point  out  (Essays  in  Eugenics,  p.  35)  that  in  eugenics 
"  we  must  leave  morals  as  far  as  possible  out  of  the  discussion,  not 
entangling  ourselves  with  the  almost  hopeless  difficulties  they  raise 
as  to  whether  a  character  as  a  whole  is  good  or  bad." 


INTRODUCTION  45 

lizatior  of  the  unfit — are  excellent  when  wisely 
applied,  but  they  become  mischievous,  if  not  ridiculous, 
in  the  hands  of  fanatics  who  would  employ  them  by 
force.  Domestic  animals  may  be  highly  bred  from  out- 
side, compulsoi'ily.  Man  can  only  be  bred  upwards  from 
within  through  the  medium  of  his  intelligence  and  will, 
working  together  under  the  control  of  a  high  sense  of 
responsibility.  The  infinite  cunning  of  men  and  women 
is  fully  equal  to  the  defeat  of  any  attempt  to  touch  life 
at  this  intimate  point  against  the  wish  of  those  to  whom 
the  creation  of  life  is  enticed.  The  laws  of  marriage 
even  among  savages  have  often  been  complex  and 
strenuous  in  the  highest  degree,  But  it  has  been  easy 
to  bear  them,  for  they  have  bet-P  part  of  the  sacred 
and  inviolable  traditions  of  the  race  ;  religion  lay  behind 
them.  And  Galton,  who  recognized  the  futility  of  mere 
legislation  in  the  elevation  of  the  race,  believed  that  the 
hope  of  the  future  lies  in  rendering  eugenics  a  Pai"t  °* 
religion.  The  only  compulsion  we  can  apply  in  e\u,Semcs 
is  the  compulsion  that  comes  from  within.  All  those  in 
whom  any  fine  sense  of  social  and  racial  responsibility 
is  developed  will  desire,  before  marriage,  to  give,  and  to 
receive,  the  fullest  information  on  all  the  matters  that 
concern  ancestral  inheritance,  while  the  registration 
of  such  information,  it  is  probable,  will  become  ever 
simpler  and  more  a  matter  of  course.1    And  if  he  finds 

1  Dr.  Toulouse  has  devoted  a  whole  volume  to  the  results  of  a  minute 
personal  examination  of  Zola,  the  novelist,  and  another  to  Poincar6,  the 
mathematician.  Such  minute  investigations  are  at  present  confined 
to  men  of  genius,  but  some  day,  perhaps,  we  shall  consider  that  from 
the  eugenic  standpoint  all  men  are  men  of  genius. 


46  THE  TASK  OF  SOCIAL  HYGIENE 

that  he  is  not  justified  in  aiding  to  carry  on  the  race> 
the  eugenist  will  be  content  to  make  himself'  m  tne 
words  of  Jesus,  "  a  eunuch  for  the  kingdom  of  Heaven's 
sake,"  whether,  under  modern  conditions,  that  means 
abstention  in  marriage  from  procreation*  or  voluntary 
sterilization  by  operative  methods.1  V0T>  as  Giddings 
has  put  it,  the  goal  of  the  race  lies,  not  in  the  ruthless 
exaltation  of  a  super-man,  but  in  the  evolution  of  a  super- 
mankind.  Such  a  goal  can  only  >je  reached  by  resolute 
selection  and  elimination.2 

The  breeding  of  men  lies  largely  in  the  hands  of  women. 
That  is  why  the  question  of  Eugenics  is  to  a  great  extent 
one  with  the  woman  question.  The  realization  of  eugenics 
in  our  social  life  can  only  be  attained  with  the  realization 
of  the  woman  movement  in  its  latest  and  completest 
phase  as  an  er  lightened  culture  of  motherhood,  in  all 
that  motherhood  involves  alike  on  the  physical  and  the 
psychic  sides.  Motherhood  on  the  eugenic  basis  is  a 
deliberate  and  selective  process,  calling  for  the  highest 

1  Sterilization  for  social  ends  was  introduced  in  Switzerland  a  few 
years  ago,  in  order  to  enable  some  persons  with  impaired  self-control 
to  be  set  at  liberty  and  resume  work  without  the  risk  of  adding  to  the 
population  defective  members  who  would  probably  be  a  burden  on  the 
community.  It  was  performed  with  the  consent  of  the  subjects  (in 
some  cases  at  their  urgent  request)  and  their  relations,  so  requiring 
no  special  legislation,  and  the  results  are  said  to  be  satisfactory.  In 
some  American  States  sterilization  for  some  classes  of  defective  persons 
has  been  established  by  statute,  but  it  is  difficult  to  obtain  reliable 
information  as  regards  the  working  and  the  results  of  such  legislation. 

8  When  Professor  Giddings  speaks  of  the  "  goal  of  mankind,"  it 
must,  of  course,  be  remembered,  he  is  using  a  bold  metaphor  in  order 
to  make  his  meaning  clearer.  Strictly  speaking,  mankind  has  no 
"  goals,"  nor  are  there  any  ends  in  Nature  which  are  not  means  to 
further  ends. 


INTRODUCTION  47 

intelligence  as  well  as  the  finest  emotional  and  moral 
aptitudes,  so  that  all  the  best  energies  of  a  long  evolution 
of  womanhood  in  the  paths  of  modern  culture  here  find 
their  final  outlet.  The  breeding  of  children  further 
involves  the  training  of  children,  and  since  the  expansion 
of  Social  Hygiene  renders  education  a  far  larger  and 
more  delicate  task  than  it  has  ever  been  before,  the 
responsibilities  laid  upon  women  by  the  evolution  of 
civilization  become  correspondingly  great. 

For  the  men  who  have  been  thus  born  and  taught 
the  tasks  imposed  by  Social  Hygiene  are  in  no  degree 
lighter.    They  demand  all  the  best  qualities  of  a  selectively 
bred  race  from  which  the  mentally  and  physically  weak 
have,  so  far  as  possible,  been  bred  out.    The  substitution 
of  law  for  war  alike  in  the  relations  of  class  to  class, 
and  of  nation  to  nation,  and  the  organization  of  inter- 
national methods  of  social  intercourse  between  peoples 
of  different  tongues  and  unlike  traditions,  are  but  two 
typical  examples  of  the  tasks,  difficult  but  imperative, 
which  Social  Hygiene  presents  and  the  course  of  modern 
civilization    renders    insistent.      Again,    the    adequate 
adjustment   of   the   claims   of   the   individual   and   the 
claims  of  the  community,  each  carried   to   its   farthest 
point,  can  but  prove  an  exquisite  test  of  the  quality 
of  any  well-bred  and  well-trained  race.     It  is  exactly 
in  that  balancing  of  apparent  opposites,  the  necessity  of 
pushing  to  extremes  both  opposites,  and  the  consequent 
need  of  cultivating  that  quality  of  temperance  the  Greeks 
estimated   so   highly,    that   the   supreme   difficulties   of 
modern  civilization  lie.     We  see  these  difficulties  again 


48  THE  TASK  OF  SOCIAL  HYGIENE 

in  relation  to  the  extension  of  law.  It  is  desirable  and 
inevitable  that  the  sphere  of  law  should  be  extended, 
and  that  the  disputes  which  are  still  decided  by  brutal 
and  unreasoning  force  should  be  decided  by  humane 
and  reasoning  force,  that  is  to  say,  by  law.  But,  side 
by  side  with  this  extension  of  law,  it  is  necessary  to  wage 
a  constant  war  with  the  law-making  tendency,  to  cherish 
an  undying  resolve  to  maintain  unsullied  those  sacred 
and  intimate  impulses,  all  the  finest  activities  of  the 
moral  sphere,  which  the  generalizing  hand  of  law  can 
only  injure  and  stain. 

It  is  these  fascinating  and  impassioning  problems, 
every  day  becoming  of  more  urgent  practical  importance, 
which  it  is  the  task  of  Social  Hygiene  to  solve,  having 
first  created  the  men  and  women  who  are  fit  to  solve 
them.  It  is  such  problems  as  these  that  we  are  to-day 
called  upon  to  illuminate,  as  far  as  we  may — it  may 
not  yet  be  very  far — by  the  dry  light  of  science. 


II 

THE  CHANGING  STATUS  OF  WOMEN  1 

The  Origin  of  the  Woman  Movement — Mary  Wollstonecraft — George 
Sand — Robert  Owen — William  Thompson — John  Stuart  Mill — The 
Modern  Growth  of  Social  Cohesion — The  Growth  of  Industrialism 
— Its  Influence  in  Woman's  Sphere  of  Work — The  Education  of 
Women — Co-education — The  Woman  Question  and  Sexual  Selection 
— Significance  of  Economic  Independence — The  State  Regulation  of 
Marriage — The  Future  of  Marriage — Wilhelm  von  Humboldt — 
Social  Equality  of  Women — The  Reproduction  of  the  Race  as  a 
Function  of  Society — Women  and  the  Future  of  Civilization. 


IT  was  in  the  eighteenth  century,  the  seed-time  of 
modern  ideas,  that  our  great-grandfathers  became 
conscious  of  a  discordant  break  in  the  traditional 
conceptions  of  women's  status.  The  vague  cries  of 
Justice,    Freedom,    Equality,    which   were   then   hurled 

1  This  chapter  was  written  so  long  ago  as  188S,  and  published  in  the 
Westminster  Review  in  the  following  year.  I  have  pleasure  in  here 
including  it  exactly  as  it  was  originally  written,  not  only  because  it 
has  its  proper  place  in  the  present  volume,  but  because  it  may  be 
regarded  as  a  programme  which  I  have  since  elaborated  in  numerous 
volumes.  The  original  first  section  has,  however,  been  omitted,  as  it 
embodied  a  statement  of  the  matriarchal  theory  which,  in  view  of  the 
difficulty  of  the  subject  and  the  wide  differences  of  opinion  about  it,  I 
now  consider  necessary  to  express  more  guardedly  (see,  for  a  more  recent 
statement,  Havelock  Ellis,  Studies  in  the  Psychology  of  Sex,  Vol.  VI, 
"  Sex  in  Relation  to  Society,"  chap.  x).  With  this  exception,  and 
the  deletion  of  two  insignificant  footnotes,  no  changes  have  been  made. 
After  the  lapse  of  a  quarter  of  a  century  I  find  nothing  that  I  seriously 
wish  to  withdraw  and  much  that  I  now  wish  to  emphasize. 

E  49 


50  THE  TASK  OF  SOCIAL  HYGIENE 

about  the  world,  were  here  and  there  energetically 
applied  to  women — notably  in  France  by  Condorcet 
— and  a  new  movement  began  to  grow  self-conscious 
and  coherent.  Mary  Wollstonecraft,  after  Aphra  Behn 
the  first  really  noteworthy  Englishwoman  of  letters, 
gave  voice  to  this  movement  in  England. 

The  famous  and  little-read  Vindication  of  the  Rights 
of  Women,  careless  and  fragmentary  as  it  is,  and  by  no 
means  so  startling  to  us  as  to  her  contemporaries,  shows 
Mary  Wollstonecraft  as  a  woman  of  genuine  insight, 
who  saw  the  questions  of  woman's  social  condition 
in  their  essential  bearings.  Her  intuitions  need  little 
modification,  even  though  a  century  of  progress  has 
intervened.  The  modern  advocates  of  woman's  suffrage 
have  little  to  add  to  her  brief  statement.  She  is  far, 
indeed,  from  the  monstrous  notion  of  Miss  Cobbe,  that 
woman's  suffrage  is  the  "  crown  and  completion  "  of 
all  progress  so  far  as  women's  movements  are  concerned. 
She  looks  upon  it  rather  as  one  of  the  reasonable  con- 
ditions of  progress.  It  is  pleasant  to  turn  from  the 
eccentric  energy  of  so  many  of  the  advocates  of  women's 
causes  to-day,  all  engaged  in  crying  up  their  own  par- 
ticular nostrum,  to  the  genial  many-sided  wisdom  of 
Mary  Wollstonecraft,  touching  all  subjects  with  equal 
frankness  and  delicacy. 

The  most  brilliant  and  successful  exponent  of  the 
new  revolutionary  ideas — making  Corinne  and  her 
prototype  seem  dim  and  ineffectual — was  undoubtedly 
George  Sand.  The  badly-dressed  woman  who  earned 
her  living  by  scribbling  novels,  and  said  to  M.  du  Camp, 


THE  CHANGING  STATUS  OF  WOMEN       51 

as  she  sat  before  him  in  silence  rolling  her  cigarette, 
"  Je  ne  dis  rien  parceque  je  suis  bete,"  has  exercised 
a  profound  influence  throughout  Europe,  an  influence 
which,  in  the  Sclavonic  countries  especially,  has  helped 
to  give  impetus  to  the  revolution  we  are  now  considering. 
And  this  not  so  much  from  any  definite  doctrines  that 
underlie  her  work — for  George  Sand's  views  on  such 
matters  varied  as  much  as  her  political  views — as  from 
her  whole  temper  and  attitude.  Her  large  and  rich 
nature,  as  sometimes  happens  in  genius  of  a  high  order, 
was  twofold  ;  on  the  one  hand,  she  possessed  a  solid 
serenity,  a  quiet  sense  of  power,  the  qualities  of  a  bonne 
bourgeoise,  which  found  expression  in  her  imperturbable 
calm,  her  gentle  look  and  low  voice.  And  with  this  was 
associated  a  massive,  almost  Rabelaisian  temperament 
(one  may  catch  glimpses  of  it  in  her  correspondence), 
a  sane  exuberant  earthliness  which  delighted  in  every 
manifestation  of  the  actual  world.  On  the  other  hand, 
she  bore  within  her  a  volcanic  element  of  revolt,  an 
immense  disgust  of  law  and  custom.  Throughout  her 
life  George  Sand  developed  her  strong  and  splendid 
individuality,  not  perhaps  as  harmoniously,  but  as 
courageously  and  as  sincerely  as  even  Goethe. 

Robert  Owen,  who,  like  Saint-Simon  in  France, 
gave  so  extraordinary  an  impulse  to  all  efforts  at  social 
reorganization,  and  who  planted  the  seed  of  many 
modern  movements,  could  not  fail  to  extend  his  in- 
fluence to  the  region  of  sex.  A  disciple  of  his,  William 
Thompson,  who  still  holds  a  distinguished  position  in 
the    history    of    the    economic    doctrines    of    Socialism, 


52  THE  TASK  OF  SOCIAL  HYGIENE 

wrote,  under  the  inspiration  of  a  woman  (a  Mrs.  Wheeler), 
and  published  in  1825,  an  Appeal  of  One  Half  of  the  Human 
Race,  Women,  against  the  Pretensions  of  the  Other  Half,  Men, 
to  retain  them  in  Political,  and  thence  in  Civil  and  Domestic 
Slavery.  It  is  a  thorough  and  logical,  almost  eloquent, 
demand  for  the  absolute  social  equality  of  the  sexes.1 

Forty  years  later,  Mill,  also  inspired  by  a  woman, 
published  his  Subjection  of  Women.  However  partial 
and  inadequate  it  may  seem  to  us,  this  was  at  that 
day  a  notable  book.  Mill's  clear  vision  and  feminine 
sensibilities  gave  freshness  to  his  observations  regarding 
the  condition  and  capacity  of  women,  while  his  repu- 
tation imparted  gravity  and  resonance  to  his  utterances. 
Since  then  the  signs  in  literature  of  the  breaking  up  of 

1  The  following  passage  summarizes  this  Appeal  :  "  The  simple 
and  modest  request  is,  that  they  may  be  permitted  equal  enjoyments 
with  men,  provided  they  can,  by  the  free  and  equal  development  and 
exercise  of  their  faculties,  procure  for  themselves  such  enjoyments.  They 
ask  the  same  means  that  men  possess  of  acquiring  every  species  of 
knowledge,  of  unfolding  every  one  of  their  faculties  of  mind  and  body 
that  can  be  made  tributary  to  their  happiness.  They  ask  every  facilty 
of  access  to  every  art,  occupation,  profession,  from  the  highest  to  the 
lowest,  without  one  exception,  to  which  their  inclinations  and  talents 
may  direct  and  may  fit  them  to  occupy.  They  ask  the  removal  of  all 
restraints  and  exclusions  not  applicable  to  men  of  equal  capacities. 
They  ask  for  perfectly  equal  political,  civil,  and  domestic  rights.  They 
ask  for  equal  obligations  and  equal  punishments  from  the  law  with  men 
in  case  of  infraction  of  the  same  law  by  either  party.  They  ask  for 
an  equal  system  of  morals,  founded  on  utility  instead  of  caprice  and 
unreasoning  despotism,  in  which  the  same  action,  attended  with  the 
same  consequences,  whether  done  by  man  or  woman,  should  be  attended 
with  the  same  portion  of  approbation  or  disapprobation  ;  in  which 
every  pleasure,  accompanied  or  followed  by  no  preponderant  evil, 
should  be  equally  permitted  to  women  and  to  men  ;  in  which  every 
pleasure  accompanied  or  followed  by  preponderant  evil  should  be 
equally  censured  in  women  and  in  men." 


THE  CHANGING  STATUS  OF  WOMEN        53 

the  status  of  women  have  become  far  too  numerous 
to  be  chronicled  even  in  a  volume.  It  is  enough  to  have 
mentioned  here  some  typical  initiatory  names.  Now, 
the  movement  may  be  seen  at  work  anywhere,  from 
Norway  to  Italy,  from  Russia  to  California.  The  status 
which  women  are  now  entering  places  them,  not,  as  in 
the  old  communism,  in  large  measure  practically  above 
men,  nor,  as  in  the  subsequent  period,  both  practically 
and  theoretically  in  subordination  to  men.  It  places 
them  side  by  side,  with  like  rights  and  like  duties  in  re- 
lation to  society. 

11 

Condorcet,  Mary  Wollstonecraft,  George  Sand,  Owen, 
Mill — these  were  feathers  on  the  stream.  They  indicated 
the  forces  that  had  their  source  at  the  centre  of  social 
life.  That  historical  movement  which  produced  mother- 
law  probably  owed  its  rise,  as  well  as  its  fall,  to  demands 
of  subsistence  and  property — that  is,  to  economic  causes. 
The  decay  of  the  subsequent  family  system,  in  which 
the  whole  power  is  concentrated  in  the  male  head, 
is  being  produced  by  similar  causes.  The  early 
communism,  and  the  modes  of  action  and  sentiment 
which  it  had  produced,  still  practically  persisted  long 
after  the  new  system  had  arisen.  In  the  patriarchal 
family  the  woman  still  had  a  recognized  sphere  of  work 
and  a  recognized  right  to  subsistence.  It  was  not, 
indeed,  until  the  sudden  development  of  the  industrial 
system,  and  the  purely  individualistic  economics  with 
which  it  was  associated,  at  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 


54  THE  TASK  OF  SOCIAL  HYGIENE 

century,  that  women  in  England  were  forced  to  realize 
that  their  household  industries  were  gone,  and  that  they 
must  join  in  that  game  of  competition  in  which  the  field 
and  the  rules  had  alike  been  chosen  with  reference  to 
men  alone.  The  commercial  and  industrial  system, 
and  the  general  diffusion  of  education  that  has 
accompanied  it,  and  which  also  has  its  roots  in  economic 
causes,  has  been  the  chief  motive  force  in  revolutionizing 
the  status  of  women  ;  and  the  epoch  of  unrestricted 
competition  on  masculine  lines  has  been  a  necessary 
period  of  transition.1 

At  the  present  time  two  great  tendencies  are  visible 
in  our  social  organization.  On  the  one  hand,  the  threads 
of  social  life  are  growing  closer,  and  organization,  as 
regards  the  simple  and  common  means  of  subsistence, 
is  increasing.  On  the  other  hand,  as  regards  the  things 
that  most  closely  concern  the  individual  person,  the 
sphere  of  freedom  is  being  perpetually  enlarged.  Instead 
of  every  man  digging  a  well  for  his  own  use  and  at  his 
own  free  pleasure,  perhaps  in  a  graveyard  or  a  cesspool, 
we  consent  to  the  distribution  of  water  by  a  central 
executive.    We  have  carried  social  methods  so  far  that, 

1  A  period  of  transition  not  the  less  necessary  although  it  is  certainly 
disastrous  and  tends  to  produce  an  unwholesome  tension  between  the 
sexes  so  long  as  men  and  women  do  not  receive  equal  payment  for  equal 
work.  "  A  thing  of  beauty  is  a  joy  for  ever,"  as  a  working  man  in 
Blackburn  lately  put  it,  "  but  when  the  thing  of  beauty  takes  to  doing 
the  work  for  16s.  a  week  that  you  have  been  paid  22s.  for,  you  do  not 
feel  as  if  you  cannot  live  without  possessing  that  thing  of  beauty  all  to 
yourself,  or  that  you  are  willing  to  lay  your  life  and  your  fortune 
(when  you  have  one)  at  its  feet."  On  the  other  hand,  the  working  girl 
in  the  same  town  often  complains  that  a  man  will  not  look  at  a  girl 
unless  she  is  a  "  four-loom  weaver,"  earning,  that  is,  perhaps,  20s.  or 
25s.  a  week. 


THE  CHANGING  STATUS  OF  WOMEN        55 

instead  of  producing  our  own  bread  and  butter,  we 
prefer  to  go  to  a  common  bakery  and  dairy.  The  same 
centralizing  methods  are  extending  to  all  those  things 
of  which  all  have  equal  need.  On  the  other  hand,  we 
exercise  a  very  considerable  freedom  of  individual 
thought.  We  claim  a  larger  and  larger  freedom  of 
individual  speech  and  criticism.  We  worship  any  god 
we  choose,  after  any  fashion  we  choose.  The  same 
individual  freedom  is  beginning  to  invade  the  sexual 
relationships.  It  is  extending  to  all  those  things  in 
regard  to  which  civilized  men  have  become  so  variously 
differentiated  that  they  have  no  equal  common  needs. 
These  two  tendencies,  so  far  from  being  antagonistic, 
cannot  even  be  carried  out  under  modern  conditions 
of  life  except  together.  It  is  only  by  social  co-operation 
in  regard  to  what  is  commonly  called  the  physical  side 
of  life  that  it  becomes  possible  for  the  individual  to 
develop  his  own  peculiar  nature.  The  society  of  the 
future  is  a  reasonable  anarchy  founded  on  a  broad  basis 
of  Collectivism. 

It  is  not  our  object  here  to  point  out  how  widely 
these  tendencies  affect  men,  but  it  is  worth  while  to 
indicate  some  of  their  bearings  on  the  condition  of 
women.  While  genuine  productive  industries  have 
been  taken  out  of  the  hands  of  women  who  work  under 
the  old  conditions,  an  increasingly  burdensome  weight 
of  unnecessary  duties  has  been  laid  upon  them.  Under 
the  old  communistic  system,  when  a  large  number  of 
families  lived  together  in  one  great  house,  the  women 
combined  to  perform  their  household  duties,  the  cooking 


56  THE  TASK  OF  SOCIAL  HYGIENE 

being  done  at  a  common  fire.  They  had  grown  up  to- 
gether from  childhood,  and  combination  could  be  effected 
without  friction.  It  is  the  result  of  the  later  system 
that  the  woman  has  to  perform  all  the  necessary  house- 
hold duties  in  the  most  wasteful  manner,  with  least 
division  of  labour  ;  while  she  has,  in  addition,  to  perform 
a  great  amount  of  unnecessary  work,  in  obedience  to 
traditional  or  conventional  habits,  which  make  it  im- 
possible even  to  perform  the  simple  act  of  dusting  the 
rooms  of  a  small  house  in  less  than  perhaps  an  hour 
and  a  half.  She  has  probably  also  to  accomplish,  if 
she  happens  to  belong  to  the  middle  or  upper  classes, 
an  idle  round  of  so-called  "  social  duties."  She  tries 
to  escape,  when  she  can  afford  it,  by  adopting  the  ap- 
parently simple  expedient  of  paying  other  people  to 
perform  these  necessary  and  unnecessary  household 
duties,  but  this  expedient  fails  ;  the  "  social  duties  ' 
increase  in  the  same  ratio  as  the  servants  increase 
and  the  task  of  overseeing  these  latter  itself  proves 
formidable.  It  is  quite  impossible  for  any  person  under 
these  conditions  to  lead  a  reasonable  and  wholesome 
human  life.  A  healthy  life  is  more  difficult  to  attain 
for  the  woman  of  the  ordinary  household  than  for  the 
worker  in  a  mine,  for  he  at  least,  when  the  work  of  his 
set  is  over,  has  two-thirds  of  the  twenty-four  hours 
to  himself.  The  woman  is  bound  by  a  thousand  Lilli- 
putian threads  from  which  there  seems  no  escape.  She 
often  makes  frantic  efforts  to  escape,  but  the  combined 
strength  of  the  threads  generally  proves  too  strong. 
There   can   be   no   doubt    that    the   present   household 


THE  CHANGING  STATUS  OF  WOMEN        57 

system  is  doomed  ;  the  higher  standard  of  intelligence 
demanded  from  women,  the  growth  of  interest  in  the 
problems  of  domestic  economy,  the  movement  for 
association  of  labour,  the  revolt  against  the  survivals 
of  barbaric  complication  in  living — all  these,  which 
are  symptoms  of  a  great  economic  revolution,  indicate 
the  approach  of  a  new  period. 

The  education  of  women  is  an  essential  part  of  the 
great  movement  we  are  considering.  Women  will  shortly 
be  voters,  and  women,  at  all  events  in  England,  are 
in  a  majority.  We  have  to  educate  our  mistresses 
as  we  once  had  to  educate  our  masters.  And  the  word 
"  education  "  is  here  used  by  no  means  in  the  narrow 
sense.  A  woman  may  be  acquainted  with  Greek  and  the 
higher  mathematics,  and  be  as  uneducated  in  the  wider 
relationships  of  life  as  a  man  in  the  like  case.  How 
much  women  suffer  from  this  lack  of  education  may  be 
seen  to-day  even  among  those  who  are  counted  as  leaders. 

There  are  extravagances  in  every  period  of  transition. 
Undoubtedly  a  potent  factor  in  bringing  about  a  saner 
attitude  will  be  the  education  of  boys  and  girls  together. 
The  lack  of  early  fellowship  fosters  an  unnatural  diver- 
gence of  aims  and  ideals,  and  a  consequent  lack  of 
sympathy.  It  makes  possible  those  abundant  foolish 
generalizations  by  men  concerning  "  women,"  by  women 
concerning  "  men."  St.  Augustine,  at  an  early  period 
of  his  ardent  career,  conceived  with  certain  friends 
the  notion  of  forming  a  community  having  goods  in 
common  ;  the  scheme  was  almost  effected  when  it 
was  discovered  that   "  those  little  wives,   which  some 


58  THE  TASK  OF  SOCIAL  HYGIENE 

already  had,  and  others  would  shortly  have,"  objected, 
and  so  it  fell  through.  Perhaps  the  mulicrculce  were 
right.  It  is  simply  a  rather  remote  instance  of  a  funda- 
mental divergence  amply  illustrated  before  our  eyes. 
If  men  and  women  are  to  understand  each  other,  to  enter 
into  each  other's  natures  with  mutual  sympathy,  and 
to  become  capable  of  genuine  comradeship,  the  foundation 
must  be  laid  in  youth.  Another  wholesome  reform, 
,  promoted  by  co-education,  is  the  physical  education 
of  women.  In  the  case  of  boys  special  attention  has 
generally  been  given  to  physical  education,  and  the  lack 
of  it  is  one  among  several  artificial  causes  of  that  chronic 
ill-health  which  so  often  handicaps  women.  Women 
must  have  the  same  education  as  men,  Miss  Faithfull 
shrewdly  observes,  because  that  is  sure  to  be  the  best. 
The  present  education  of  boys  cannot,  however,  be 
counted  a  model,  and  the  gradual  introduction  of  co- 
education will  produce  many  wholesome  reforms.  If 
the  intimate  association  of  the  sexes  destroys  what 
remnant  may  linger  of  the  unhealthy  ideal  of  chivalry — 
according  to  which  a  woman  was  treated  as  a  cross  be- 
tween an  angel  and  an  idiot — that  is  matter  for  rejoicing. 
Wherever  men  and  women  stand  in  each  other's  presence 
the  sexual  instinct  will  always  ensure  an  adequate  ideal 
halo. 

in 

The  chief  question  that  we  have  to  ask  when  we 
consider  the  changing  status  of  women  is  :  How  will 
it  affect   the  reproduction  of   the  race  ?      Hunger  and 


THE  CHANGING  STATUS  OF  WOMEN        59 

love  are  the  two  great  motor  impulses,  the  ultimate 
source,  probably,  of  all  other  impulses.  Hunger — that 
is  to  say,  what  we  call  "  economic  causes  " — has,  be- 
cause it  is  the  more  widespread  and  constant,  though 
-not  necessarily  the  more  imperious  instinct,  produced 
nearly  all  the  great  zoological  revolutions,  including, 
as  we  have  seen,  the  rise  and  fall  of  that  phase  of  human 
evolution  dominated  by  mother-law.  Yet  love  has, 
in  the  form  of  sexual  selection,  even  before  we  reach 
the  vertebrates,  moulded  races  to  the  ideal  of  the  female  ; 
and  reproduction  is  always  the  chief  end  of  nutrition 
which  hunger  waits  on,  the  supreme  aim  of  life  every- 
where. 

If  we  place  on  the  one  side  man,  as  we  know  him 
during  the  historical  period,  and  on  the  other,  nearly 
every  highly  organized  member  of  the  animal  family, 
there  appears,  speaking  roughly  and  generally,  a  distinct 
difference  in  the  relation  which  these  two  motor  im- 
pulses bear  to  each  other.  Among  animals  generally, 
economics  are  comparatively  so  simple  that  it  is  possible 
to  satisfy  the  nutritive  instinct  without  putting  any 
hard  pressure  on  the  spontaneous  play  of  the  repro- 
ductive instinct.  And  nearly  everywhere  it  is  the  female 
who  has  the  chief  voice  in  the  establishment  of  sexual 
relationships.  The  males  compete  for  the  favour  of 
the  female  by  the  fascination  of  their  odour,  or  brilliant 
colour,  or  song,  or  grace,  or  strength,  as  revealed  in  what 
are  usually  mock-combats.  The  female  is,  in  these 
respects,  comparatively  unaccomplished  and  compara- 
tively passive.     With  her  rests  the  final  decision,  and 


60  THE  TASK  OF  SOCIAL  HYGIENE 

only  after  long  hesitation,  influenced,  it  seems,  by  a 
vaguely  felt  ideal  resulting  from  her  contemplation 
of  the  rivals,  she  calls  the  male  of  her  choice.1  A  dim 
instinct  seems  to  warn  her  of  the  pains  and  cares  of 
maternity,  so  that  only  the  largest  promises  of  pleasure 
can  induce  her  to  undertake  the  function  of  reproduction. 
In  civilized  man,  on  the  other  hand,  as  we  know  him, 
the  situation  is  to  some  extent  reversed  ;  it  is  the  woman 
who,  by  the  display  of  her  attractions,  competes  for  the 
favour  of  the  man.  The  final  invitation  does  not  come, 
as  among  animals  generally,  from  the  female  ;  the  de- 
cision rests  with  the  man.  It  would  be  a  mistake  to 
suppose  that  this  change  reveals  the  evolution  of  a 
superior  method  ;  although  it  has  developed  the  beauty 
of  women,  it  has  clearly  had  its  origin  in  economic 
causes.  The  demands  of  nutrition  have  overridden 
those  of  reproduction  ;  sexual  selection  has,  to  a  large 
extent,  given  place  to  natural  selection,  a  process  clearly 
not  for  the  advantage  of  the  race.  The  changing  status 
of  women,  in  bestowing  economic  independence,  will 
certainly  tend  to  restore  to  sexual  selection  its  due  weight 
in  human  development. 

In  so  doing  it  will  certainly  tend  also  to  destroy 
prostitution,  which  is  simply  one  of  the  forms  in  which 
the  merging  of  sexual  selection  in  natural  selection 
has  shown  itself.  Wherever  sexual  selection  has  free 
play,  unhampered  by  economic  considerations,  prosti- 

1  See  the  very  interesting  work  of  Alfred  Espinas,  Des  Soctites 
Animates,  which  contains  many  fruitful  suggestions  for  the  student  of 
human  sociology. 


THE  CHANGING  STATUS  OF  WOMEN        61 

tution  is  impossible.  The  dominant  type  of  marriage 
is,  like  prostitution,  founded  on  economic  considerations  ; 
the  woman  often  marries  chiefly  to  earn  her  living ; 
here,  too,  we  may  certainly  expect  profound  modi- 
fications. We  have  long  sought  to  preserve  our  social 
balance  by  placing  an  unreasonable  licence  in  the  one 
scale,  an  equally  unreasonable  abstinence  in  the  other ; 
the  economic  independence  of  women,  tending  to  render 
both  extremes  unnecessary,  can  alone  place  the  sexual 
relationships  on  a  sound  and  free  basis. 

The  State  regulation  of  marriage  has  undoubtedly 
played  a  large  and  important  part  in  the  evolution  of 
society.  At  the  present  time  the  advantages  of  this 
artificial  control  no  longer  appear  so  obvious  (even 
when  the  evidence  of  the  law  courts  is  put  aside)  ;  they 
will  vanish  altogether  when  women  have  attained 
complete  economic  independence.  With  the  disappear- 
ance of  the  artificial  barriers  in  the  way  of  friendship 
between  the  sexes  and  of  the  economic  motive  to  sexual 
relationships — perhaps  the  two  chief  forces  which  now 
tend  to  produce  promiscuous  sexual  intercourse,  whether 
dignified  or  not  with  the  name  of  marriage — men  and 
women  will  be  free  to  engage,  unhampered,  in  the  search, 
so  complicated  in  a  highly  civilized  condition  of  society, 
for  a  fitting  mate.1 

1  The  subtle  and  complex  character  of  the  sexual  relationships  in  a 
high  civilization,  and  the  unhappy  results  of  their  State  regulation, 
was  well  expressed  by  Wilhelm  von  Humboldt  in  his  Ideen  zu  einen 
Versuch,  die  Grenzen  der  Wirksamkeit  des  Staates  zu  bestimmen,  so  long 
ago  as  1792  :  "A  union  so  closely  allied  with  the  very  nature  of  the 
respective  individuals  must  be  attended  with  the  most  hurtful  con- 
sequences when  the  State  attempts  to  regulate  it  by  law,  or,  through 


62  THE  TASK  OF  SOCIAL  HYGIENE 

It  is  probable  that  this  inevitable  change  will  be 
brought  about  partly  by  the  voluntary  action  of  in- 
dividuals, and  in  greater  measure  by  the  gradual  and 
awkward  method  of  shifting  and  ever  freer  divorce 
laws.  The  slow  disintegration  of  State-regulated  marriage 
from  the  latter  cause  may  be  observed  now  throughout  the 
United  States,  where  there  is,  on  the  whole,  a  developing 
tendency  to   frequency  and  facility  of  divorce.     It   is 

the  force  of  its  institutions,  to  make  it  repose  on  anything  save  simple 
inclination.  When  we  remember,  moreover,  that  the  State  can  only 
contemplate  the  final  results  of  such  regulations  on  the  race,  we  shall 
be  still  more  ready  to  admit  the  justice  of  this  conclusion.  It  may 
reasonably  be  argued  that  a  solicitude  for  the  race  only  conducts  to  the 
same  results  as  the  highest  solicitude  for  the  most  beautiful  develop- 
ment of  the  inner  man.  For  after  careful  observation  it  has  been  found 
that  the  uninterrupted  union  of  one  man  with  one  woman  is  most 
beneficial  to  the  race,  and  it  is  likewise  undeniable  that  no  other  union 
springs  from  true,  natural,  harmonious  love.  And  further,  it  may  be 
observed  that  such  love  leads  to  the  same  results  as  those  very  relations 
which  law  and  custom  tend  to  establish.  The  radical  error  seems  to  be 
that  the  law  commands  ;  whereas  such  a  relation  cannot  mould  itself 
according  to  external  arrangements,  but  depends  wholly  on  inclination  ; 
and  wherever  coercion  or  guidance  comes  into  collision  with  inclination, 
they  divert  it  still  farther  from  the  proper  path.  Wherefore  it  appears 
to  me  that  the  State  should  not  only  loosen  the  bonds  in  this  instance, 
and  leave  ampler  freedom  to  the  citizen,  but  that  it  should  entirely 
withdraw  its  active  solicitude  from  the  institution  of  marriage,  and  both 
generally  and  in  its  particular  modifications,  should  rather  leave  it 
wholly  to  the  free  choice  of  the  individuals,  and  the  various  contracts 
they  may  enter  into  with  respect  to  it.  I  should  not  be  deterred  from 
the  adoption  of  this  principle  by  the  fear  that  all  family  relations 
might  be  disturbed,  for  although  such  a  fear  might  be  justified  by 
considerations  of  particular  circumstances  and  localities,  it  could  not 
fairly  be  entertained  in  an  inquiry  into  the  nature  of  men  and  States 
in  general.  For  experience  frequently  convinces  us  that  just  where 
law  has  imposed  no  fetters,  morality  most  surely  binds  ;  the  idea  of 
external  coercion  is  one  entirely  foreign  to  an  institution  which,  like 
marriage,  reposes  only  on  inclination  and  an  inward  sense  of  duty  ;  and 
the  results  of  such  coercive  institutions  do  not  at  all  correspond  to 
the  intentions  in  which  they  originate." 


THE  CHANGING  STATUS  OF  WOMEN       63 

clear,  however,  that  on  this  line  marriage  will  not  cease 
to  be  a  concern  to  the  State,  and  it  may  be  as  well  to 
point  out  at  once  the  important  distinction  between 
State-regulated  and  State-registered  marriage.  Sexual 
relationships,  so  long  as  they  do  not  result  in  the  pro- 
duction of  children,  are  matters  in  which  the  community 
has,  as  a  community,  little  or  no  concern,  but  as  soon 
as  a  sexual  relationship  results  in  the  pregnancy  of  the 
woman  the  community  is  at  once  interested.  At  this 
point  it  is  clearly  the  duty  of  the  State  to  register  the 
relationship.1 

It  is  necessary  to  remember  that  the  kind  of  equality 
of  the  sexes  towards  which  this  change  of  status  is  lead- 
ing, is  social  equality — that  is,  equality  of  freedom. 
It  is  not  an  intellectual  equality,  still  less  is  it  likeness. 
Men  and  women  can  only  be  alike  mentally  when  they 
are  alike  in  physical  configuration  and  physiological 
function.  Even  complete  economic  equality  is  not 
attainable.  Among  animals  which  live  in  herds  under 
the  guidance  of  a  leader,  this  leader  is  nearly  always 

1  Such  register  should,  as  Bertillon  rightly  insisted,  be  of  the  most 
complete  description — setting  forth  all  the  anthropological  traits  of 
the  contracting  parties- — so  that  the  characteristics  of  a  human  group 
at  any  time  and  place  may  be  studied  and  compared.  Registration 
of  this  kind  would,  beside  its  more  obvious  convenience,  form  an  almost 
indispensable  guide  to  the  higher  evolution  of  the  race.  I  may  here  add 
that  I  have  assumed,  perhaps  too  rashly,  that  the  natural  tendency 
among  civilized  men  and  women  is  towards  a  monogamic  and  more  or 
less  permanent  union  ;  preceded,  it  may  be  in  most  individuals,  by  a 
more  restless  period  of  experiment.  Undoubtedly,  many  variations 
will  arise  in  the  future,  leading  to  more  complex  relationships.  Such 
variations  cannot  be  foreseen,  and  when  they  arise  they  will  still  have 
to  prove  their  stability  and  their  advantage  to  the  race. 


64  THE  TASK  OF  SOCIAL  HYGIENE 

a  male  ;  there  are  few  exceptions.1  In  woman,  the  long 
period  of  pregnancy  and  lactation,  and  the  prolonged 
helplessness  of  her  child,  render  her  for  a  considerable 
period  of  her  life  economically  dependent.  On  whom 
shall  she  be  dependent  ?  This  is  a  question  of  consider- 
able moment.  According  to  the  old  conception  of  the 
family,  all  the  members  were  slaves  producing  for  the 
benefit  of  the  owner,  and  it  was  natural  that  the  wife 
should  be  supported  by  the  husband  when  she  is  pro- 
ducing slaves  for  his  service.  But  this  conception  is, 
as  we  have  seen,  no  longer  possible.  It  is  clearly  unfair 
also  to  compel  the  mother  to  depend  on  her  own  previous 
exertions.  The  reproduction  of  the  race  is  a  social 
function,  and  we  are  compelled  to  conclude  that  it  is 
the  duty  of  the  community,  as  a  community,  to  provide 
for  the  child-bearer  when  in  the  exercise  of  her  social 
function  she  is  unable  to  provide  for  herself.  The  woman 
engaged  in  producing  a  new  member,  who  may  be  a 
source  of  incalculable  profit  or  danger  to  the  whole 
community,  cannot  fail  to  be  a  source  of  the  liveliest 
solicitude  to  everyone  in  the  community,  and  it  was 
a  sane  and  beautiful  instinct  that  found  expression 
of  old  in  the  permission  accorded  to  a  pregnant  woman 
to  enter  gardens  and  orchards,  and  freely  help  herself. 
Whether  this  instinct  will  ever  again  be  embodied  in 
a  new  form,  and  the  reproduction  of  the  race  be  recognized 
as  truly  a  social  function,  is  a  question  which  even  yet 
lacks  actuality.  The  care  of  the  child-bearer  and  her 
child  will  at  present  continue  to  be  a  matter  for  individual 

1  As  among  geese,  and,  occasionally,  it  is  said,  among  elephants. 


THE  CHANGING  STATUS  OF  WOMEN        65 

arrangement.  That  it  will  be  arranged  much  better 
than  at  present  we  may  reasonably  hope.  On  the  one 
hand,  the  reckless  multiplication  of  children  will  probably 
be  checked ;  on  the  other  hand,  a  large  body  of  women 
will  no  longer  be  shut  out  from  maternity.  That  the 
state  should  undertake  the  regulation  of  the  birth-rate 
we  can  scarcely  either  desire  or  anticipate.  Undoubtedly 
the  community  has  an  abstract  right  to  limit  the  number 
of  its  members.  It  may  be  pointed  out,  however,  that 
under  rational  conditions  of  life  the  process  would  prob- 
ably be  self-regulating  ;  in  the  human  races,  and  also 
among  animals  generally,  fertility  diminishes  as  the 
organism  becomes  highly  developed.  And,  without 
falling  back  on  any  natural  law,  it  may  be  said  that 
the  extravagant  procreation  of  children,  leading  to 
suffering  both  to  parents  and  offspring,  carried  on  under 
existing  social  conditions,  is  largely  the  result  of  ignorance, 
largely  of  religious  or  other  superstition.  A  more  de- 
veloped social  state  would  not  be  possible  at  all  unless 
the  social  instincts  were  strong  enough  to  check  the 
reckless  multiplication  of  offspring.  Richardson  and 
others  appear  to  advocate  the  special  cultivation  of 
a  class  of  non-childbearing  women,  Certainly  no  woman 
who  freely  chose  should  be  debarred  from  belonging  to 
such  a  class.  But  reproduction  is  the  end  and  aim  of  all 
life  everywhere,  and  in  order  to  live  a  humanly  complete 
life,  every  healthy  woman  should  have,  not  sexual 
relationships  only,  but  the  exercise  at  least  once  in  her 
life  of  the  supreme  function  of  maternity,  and  the 
possession  of  those  experiences  which  only  maternity 
f 


66  THE  TASK  OF  SOCIAL  HYGIENE 

can  give.  That  unquestionably  is  the  claim  of  natural 
and  reasonable  living  in  the  social  state  towards  which 
we  are  moving. 

To  deal  with  the  social  organization  of  the  future 
would  be  to  pass  beyond  the  limits  that  I  have  here 
set  myself,  and  to  touch  on  matters  of  which  it  is  im- 
possible .  to  speak  with  certainty.  The  new  culture 
of  women,  in  the  light  and  the  open  air,  will  doubtless 
solve  many  matters  which  now  are  dark  to  us.  Morgan 
supposed  that  it  was  in  some  measure  the  failure  of  the 
Greeks  and  Romans  to  develop  their  womanhood  which 
brought  the  speedy  downfall  of  classic  civilization. 
The  women  of  the  future  will  help  to  renew  art  and 
science  as  well  as  life.  They  will  do  more  even  than  this, 
for  the  destiny  of  the  race  rests  with  women.  "  I  have 
sometimes  thought,"  Whitman  wrote  in  his  Democratic 
Vistas,  "  that  the  sole  avenue  and  means  to  a  re- 
constructed society  depended  primarily  on  a  new  birth, 
elevation,  expansion,  invigoration  of  women."  That 
intuition  is  not  without  a  sound  basis,  and  if  a  great 
historical  movement  called  for  justification  here  would 
be  enough. 


Ill 

THE  NEW  ASPECT  OF  THE  WOMAN'S 
MOVEMENT 

Eighteenth-Century  France — Pioneers  of  the  Woman's  Movement — 
The  Growth  of  the  Woman's  Suffrage  Movement — The  Militant 
Activities  of  the  Suffragettes — Their  Services  and  Disservices  to 
the  Cause — Advantages  of  Women's  Suffrage — Sex  Questions  in 
Germany — Bebel — The  Woman's  Rights  Movement  in  Germany — 
The  Development  of  Sexual  Science  in  Germany — the  Movement  for 
the  Protection  of  Motherhood — Ellen  Key — The  Question  of 
Illegitimacy — Eugenics — Women  as  Law-makers  in  the  Home. 


THE  modern  conception  of  the  political  equality 
of  women  with  men,  we  have  seen,  arose  in 
France  in  the  second  half  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  Its  way  was  prepared  by  the  philosophic 
thinkers  of  the  Encyclopedie,  and  the  idea  was  definitely 
formulated  by  some  of  the  finest  minds  of  the  age, 
notably  by  Condorcet,1  as  part  of  the  great  new  pro- 
gramme of  social  and  political  reform  which  was  to 
some  small  degree  realized  in  the  upheaval  of  the  Revo- 

1  In  1787  Condorcet  declared  (Lettres  d'un  Bourgeois  de  New  Haven, 
Lettre  II)  that  women  ought  to  have  absolutely  the  same  rights  as  men, 
and  he  repeated  the  same  statement  emphatically  in  1790,  in  an  article 
"  Sur  1' Admission  des  Femmes  au  Droit  de  Cite,"  published  in  the 
Journal  de  la  Socle" t6  de  17S9.  It  must  be  added  that  Condorcet  was 
not  a  democrat,  and  neither  to  men  nor  to  women  would  he  grant  the 
vote  unless  they  were  proprietors. 

67 


68  THE  TASK  OF  SOCIAL  HYGIENE 

lution.  The  political  emancipation  of  women  consti- 
tuted no  part  of  the  Revolution.  It  has  indeed  been 
maintained,  and  perhaps  with  reason,  that  the  normal 
development  of  the  revolutionary  spirit  would  probably 
have  ended  in  vanquishing  the  claim  of  masculine  pre- 
dominance if  war  had  not  diverted  the  movement  of 
revolution  by  transforming  it  into  the  Terror.  Even 
as  it  was,  the  rights  of  women  were  not  without  their 
champions  even  at  this  period.  We  ought  specially 
to  remember  Olympe  de  Gouges,  whose  name  is  some- 
times dismissed  too  contemptuously.  With  all  her 
defects  of  character  and  education  and  literary  style, 
Olympe  de  Gouges,  as  is  now  becoming  recognized, 
was,  in  her  biographer's  words,  "  one  of  the  loftiest  and 
most  generous  souls  of  the  epoch,"  in  some  respects 
superior  to  Madame  Roland.  She  was  the  first  woman 
to  demand  of  the  Revolution  that  it  should  be  logical 
by  proclaiming  the  rights  of  woman  side  by  side  with 
those  of  her  equal,  man,  and  in  so  doing  she  became  the 
great  pioneer  of  the  feminist  movement  of  to-day.1  She 
owes  the  position  more  especially  to  her  little  pamphlet, 
issued  in  1791,  entitled  Declaration  des  Droits  de  la  Femme. 
It  is  this  Declaration  which  contains  the  oft-quoted 
(or  misquoted)  saying  :  **  Women  have  the  right  to  ascend 
the  scaffold ;  they  must  also  have  the  right  to  ascend 
the  tribune."  Two  years  later  she  had  herself  ascended 
the  scaffold,  but  the  other  right  she  claimed  is  only  now 

1  Leopold  Lacour  has  given  a  full  and  reliable  account  of  Olympe  de 
Gouges  (who  was  born  at  Montauban  in  1755)  in  his  Trots  Femmes  de  la 
Revolution,  1900. 


THE    WOMEN'S    MOVEMENT  69 

beginning  to  be  granted  to  women.  At  that  time  there 
were  too  many  more  pressing  matters  to  be  dealt  with, 
and  the  only  women  who  had  been  taught  to  demand 
the  rights  of  their  sex  were  precisely  those  whom  the 
Revolution  was  guillotining  or  exiling.  Even  had  it 
been  otherwise,  we  may  be  quite  sure  that  Napoleon, 
the  heir  of  the  Revolution  and  the  final  arbiter  of  what 
was  to  be  permanent  in  its  achievements,  would  have 
sternly  repressed  any  political  freedom  accorded  to 
women.  The  only  freedom  he  cared  to  grant  to  women 
was  the  freedom  to  produce  food  for  cannon,  and  so 
far  as  lay  in  his  power  he  sought  to  crush  the  political 
activities  of  women  even  in  literature,  as  we  see  in  his 
treatment  of  Mme  de  Stael.1 

An  Englishwoman  of  genius  was  in  Paris  at  the  time 
of  the  Revolution,  with  as  broad  a  conception  of  the 
place  of  woman  side  by  side  with  man  as  Olympe  de 
Gouges,  while  for  the  most  part  she  was  Olympe's  superior. 
In  1792,  a  year  after  the  Declaration  des  Droits  de  la 
Femme,  Mary  Wollstonecraft — it  is  possible  to  some  extent 
inspired  by  the  brief  Declaration — published  her  Vindi- 
cation of  the  Rights  of  Women.     It  was  not  a  shrill  out- 

1  It  is  noteworthy  that  the  Empire  had  even  a  depressing  effect 
on  the  physical  activities  of  women.  The  eighteenth-century  woman 
in  France,  although  she  was  not  athletic  in  the  modern  sense,  enjoyed 
a  free  life  in  the  open  air  and  was  fond  of  physical  exercises.  During 
the  Directoire  this  tendency  became  very  pronounced  ;  women  wore 
the  scantiest  of  garments,  were  out  of  doors  in  all  weathers,  cultivated 
healthy  appetites,  and  enjoyed  the  best  of  health.  But  with  the  es- 
tablishment of  the  Empire  these  wholesome  fashions  were  discarded, 
and  women  cultivated  new  ideals  of  fragile  refinement  indoors.  (This 
evolution  has  been  traced  by  Dr.  Lucien  Nars,  L'Hygiene,  September, 
1911.) 


70  THE  TASK  OF  SOCIAL  HYGIENE 

cry,  nor  an  attack  on  men — in  that  indeed  resembling 
the  Declaration — but  just  the  book  of  a  woman,  a  wise 
and  sensible  woman,  who  discusses  many  women's 
questions  from  a  woman's  point  of  view,  and  desires 
civil  and  political  rights,  not  as  a  panacea  for  all  evils, 
but  simply  because,  as  she  argues,  humanity  cannot 
progress  as  a  whole  while  one  half  of  it  is  semi-educated 
and  only  half  free.  There  can  be  little  doubt  that  if 
the  later  advocates  of  woman's  suffrage  could  have 
preserved  more  of  Mary  Wollstonecraft's  sanity,  modera- 
tion, and  breadth  of  outlook,  they  would  have  diminished 
the  difficulties  that  beset  the  task  of  convincing  the 
community  generally.  Mary  Wollstonecraft  was,  how- 
ever, the  inspired  pioneer  of  a  great  movement  which 
slowly  gained  force  and  volume.1  During  the  long 
Victorian  period  the  practical  aims  of  this  move- 
ment went  chiefly  into  the  direction  of  improving 
the  education  of  girls  so  as  to  make  it,  so  far  as  possible, 
like  that  of  boys.  In  this  matter  an  immense  revolution 
was  slowly  accomplished,  involving  the  entrance  of 
women  into  various  professions  and  employments  hitherto 
reserved  to  men.  That  was  a  very  necessary  preliminary 
to  the  extension  of  the  franchise  to  women.  The  suffrage 
propaganda  could  not,  moreover,  fail  to  benefit  by 
the   better   education   of   women   and   their   increased 

1  Concerning  the  rise  and  progress  of  this  movement  in  England 
much  information  is  sympathetically  and  vivaciously  set  forth  in 
W.  Lyon  Blease's  Emancipation  of  English  Women  (1910),  a  book, 
however,  which  makes  no  claim  to  be  judicial  or  impartial ;  the  author 
regards  "  unregulated  male  egoism  "  as  the  source  of  the  difficulties 
in  the  way  of  women's  suffrage. 


THE    WOMAN'S    MOVEMENT  71 

activity  in  public  life.  It  was  their  activity,  indeed, 
far  more  than  the  skill  of  the  women  who  fought 
for  the  franchise,  which  made  the  political  emancipation 
of  women  inevitable,  and  the  noble  and  brilliant  women 
who  through  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  re- 
created the  educational  system  for  women,  and  so  pre- 
pared them  to  play  their  proper  part  in  life,  were  the 
best  women  workers  the  cause  of  women's  enfranchise- 
ment ever  had.  There  was,  however,  one  distinguished 
friend  of  the  emancipation  of  women  whose  advocacy 
of  the  cause  at  this  period  was  of  immense  value.  It 
is  now  nearly  half  a  century  since  John  Stuart  Mill — 
inspired,  like  Thompson,  by  a  woman — wrote  his  Sub- 
jection of  Women,  and  it  may  undoubtedly  be  said 
that  since  that  date  no  book  on  this  subject  published 
in  any  country — with  the  single  exception  of  Bebel's 
Woman — has  been  so  widely  read  or  so  influential. 
The  support  of  this  distinguished  and  authoritative 
thinker  gave  to  the  woman's  movement  a  stamp  of 
aristocratic  intellectuality  very  valuable  in  a  land 
where  even  the  finest  minds  are  apt  to  be  afflicted  by 
the  disease  of  timidity,  and  was  doubtless  a  leading 
cause  of  the  cordial  reception  which  in  England  the 
idea  of  women's  political  emancipation  has  long  re- 
ceived among  politicians.  Bebel's  book,  speedily  trans- 
lated into  English,  furnished  the  plebeian  complement 
to  Mill's. 

The  movement  for  the  education  of  women  and  their 
introduction  into  careers  previously  monopolized  by 
men  inevitably  encouraged  the  movement  for  extending 


72  THE  TASK  OF  SOCIAL  HYGIENE 

the  franchise  to  women.  This  political  reform  was  re- 
markably successful  in  winning  over  the  politicians,  and 
not  those  of  one  party  only.  In  England,  since  Mill  pub- 
lished his  Subjection  of  Women  in  1869,  there  have  always 
been  eminent  statesmen  convinced  of  the  desirability  of 
granting  the  franchise  to  women,  and  among  the  rank 
and  file  of  Members  of  Parliament,  irrespective  of  party, 
a  very  large  proportion  have  pledged  themselves  to 
the  same  cause.  The  difficulty,  therefore,  in  introducing 
woman's  suffrage  into  England  has  not  been  primarily 
in  Parliament.  The  one  point,  at  which  political  party 
feeling  has  caused  obstruction — and  it  is  certainly  a 
difficult  and  important  point — is  the  method  by  which 
woman's  suffrage  should  be  introduced.  Each  party — 
Conservative,  Liberal,  Labour — naturally  enough  de- 
sires that  this  great  new  voting  force  should  first  be 
applied  at  a  point  which  would  not  be  likely  to  injure 
its  own  party  interests.  It  is  probable  that  in  each 
party  the  majority  of  the  leaders  are  of  opinion  that 
the  admission  of  female  voters  is  inevitable  and  perhaps 
desirable  ;  the  dispute  is  as  to  the  extent  to  which  the 
floodgates  should  in  the  first  place  be  opened.  In  ac- 
cordance with  English  tradition,  some  kind  of  compromise, 
however  illogical,  suggests  itself  as  the  safest  first  step, 
but  the  dispute  remains  as  to  the  exact  class  of  women 
who  should  be  first  admitted  and  the  exact  extent  to 
which  entrance  should  be  granted  to  them. 

The  dispute  of  the  gate-keepers  would,  however, 
be  easily  overcome  if  the  pressure  behind  the  gate  were 
sufficiently  strong.     But   it   is  not.     However  large  a 


THE    WOMAN'S    MOVEMENT  73 

proportion  of  the  voters  in  Great  Britain  may  be  in 
favour  of  women's  franchise,  it  is  certain  that  only 
a  very  minute  percentage  regard  this  as  a  question 
having  precedency  over  all  other  questions.  And  the 
reason  why  men  have  only  taken  a  very  temperate 
interest  in  woman's  suffrage  is  that  women  themselves, 
in  the  mass,  have  taken  an  equally  temperate  interest 
in  the  matter  when  they  have  not  been  actually  hostile 
to  the  movement.  It  may  indeed  be  said,  even  at  the 
present  time,  that  whenever  an  impartial  poll  is  taken 
of  a  large  miscellaneous  group  of  women,  only  a  minority 
are  found  to  be  in  favour  of  woman's  suffrage.1  No 
significant  event  has  occurred  to  stimulate  general 
interest  in  the  matter,  and  no  supremely  eloquent  or 
influential  voice  has  artificially  stirred  it.  There  has 
been  no  woman  of  Mary  Wollstonecraft's  genius  and 
breadth  of  mind  who  has  devoted  herself  to  the  cause, 
and  since  Mill  the  men  who  have  made  up  their  minds 
on  this  side  have  been  content  to  leave  the  matter  to 
the  women's  associations  formed  for  securing  the  success 
of  the  cause.  These  associations  have,  however,  been 
led  by  women  of  a  past  generation,  who,  while  of  un- 
questionable intellectual  power  and  high  moral  character, 
have  viewed  the  woman  question  in  a  somewhat  narrow, 

1  Thus,  in  191 1  the  National  League  for  Opposing  Women's  Suffrage 
took  an  impartial  poll  of  the  women  voters  on  the  municipal  register  in 
several  large  constituencies,  by  sending  a  reply-paid  postcard  to  ask 
whether  or  not  they  favoured  the  extension  to  women  of  the  Parlia- 
mentary franchise.  Only  5579  were  in  favour  of  it ;  18,850  were 
against ;  12,621  did  not  take  the  trouble  to  answer,  and  it  was  claimed, 
probably  with  reason,  that  a  majority  of  these  were  not  in  favour  of 
the  vote. 


74  THE  TASK  OF  SOCIAL  HYGIENE 

old-fashioned  spirit,  and  have  not  possessed  the  gift 
of  inspiring  enthusiasm.  Thus  the  growth  of  the  move- 
ment, however  steady  it  may  have  been,  has  been  slow. 
John  Stuart  Mill's  remark,  in  a  letter  to  Bain  in  1869, 
remains  true  to-day :  "  The  most  important  thing 
women  have  to  do  is  to  stir  up  the  zeal  of  women  them- 
selves." 

In  the  meanwhile  in  some  other  countries  where, 
except  in  the  United  States,  it  was  of  much  more  recent 
growth,  the  woman's  suffrage  movement  has  achieved 
success,  with  no  great  expenditure  of  energy.  It  has 
been  introduced  into  several  American  States  and  Terri- 
tories. It  is  established  throughout  Australasia.  It 
is  also  established  in  Norway.  In  Finland  women  may 
not  only  vote,  but  also  sit  in  Parliament. 

It  was  in  these  conditions  that  the  Women's  Social 
and  Political  Union  was  formed  in  London.  It  was 
not  an  offshoot  from  any  existing  woman's  suffrage 
society,  but  represented  a  crystallization  of  new  elements. 
For  the  most  part,  even  its  leaders  had  not  previously 
taken  any  active  part  in  the  movement  for  woman's 
suffrage.  The  suffrage  movement  had  need  of  exactly 
such  an  infusion  of  fresh  and  ardent  blood  ;  so  that  the 
new  society  was  warmly  welcomed,  and  met  with  im- 
mediate success,  finding  recruits  alike  among  the  rich 
and  the  poor.  Its  unconventional  methods,  its  eager 
and  militant  spirit,  were  felt  to  supply  a  lacking  element, 
and  the  first  picturesque  and  dashing  exploits  of  the 
Union  were  on  the  whole  well  received.  The  obvious 
sincerity   and  earnestness   of  these  very   fresh  recruits 


THE    WOMAN'S    MOVEMENT  75 

covered  the  rashness  of  their  new  and  rather  ignorant 
enthusiasm. 

But  a  hasty  excess  of  ardour  only  befits  a  first  un- 
calculated  outburst  of  youthfulness.  It  is  quite  another 
matter  when  it  is  deliberately  hardened  into  a  rigid 
routine,  and  becomes  an  organized  method  of  creating 
disorder  for  the  purpose  of  advertising  a  grievance 
in  season  and  out  of  season.  Since,  moreover,  the  attack 
was  directed  chiefly  against  politicians,  precisely  that 
class  of  the  community  most  inclined  to  be  favourable  to 
woman's  suffrage,  the  wrong-headedness  of  the  move- 
ment becomes  as  striking  as  its  offensiveness. 

The  effect  on  the  early  friends  of  the  new  movement 
was  inevitable.  Some,  who  had  hailed  it  with  enthusiasm 
and  proclaimed  its  pioneers  as  new  Joans  of  Arc,  changed 
their  tone  to  expostulation  and  protest,  and  finally 
relapsed  into  silence.  Other  friends  of  the  movement, 
even  among  its  former  leaders,  were  less  silent.  They 
have  revealed  to  the  world,  too  unkindly,  some  of  the 
influences  which  slowly  corrupt  such  a  movement  from 
the  inside  when  it  hardens  into  sectarianism  :  the  narrow- 
ing of  aim,  the  increase  of  conventionality,  the  jealousy 
of  rivals,  the  tendency  to  morbid  emotionalism. 

It  is  easy  to  exaggerate  the  misdeeds  and  the  weak- 
nesses of  the  suffragettes.  It  is  undoubtedly  true  that 
they  have  alienated,  in  an  increasing  degree,  the  sym- 
pathies of  the  women  of  highest  character  and  best 
abilities  among  the  advocates  of  woman's  suffrage. 
Nearly  all  Englishwomen  to-day  who  stand  well  above 
the  average  in  mental  distinction  are  in  favour  of  woman's 


76  THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

suffrage,  though  they  may  not  always  be  inclined  to 
take  an  active  part  in  securing  it.  Perhaps  the  only 
prominent  exception  is  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward.  Yet 
they  rarely  associate  themselves  with  the  methods 
of  the  suffragettes.  They  do  not,  indeed,  protest,  for 
they  feel  there  would  be  a  kind  of  disloyalty  in  fighting 
against  the  Extreme  Left  of  a  movement  to  which  they 
themselves  belong  ;  but  they  stand  aloof.  The  women 
who  are  chiefly  attracted  to  the  ranks  of  the  suffragettes 
belong  to  three  classes  :  (i)  Those  of  the  well-to-do 
class  with  no  outlet  for  their  activities,  who  eagerly 
embrace  an  exciting  occupation  which  has  become, 
not  only  highly  respectable,  but  even,  in  a  sense,  fashion- 
able ;  they  have  no  natural  tendency  to  excess,  but  are 
easily  moved  by  their  social  environment ;  some  of 
these  are  rich,  and  the  great  principle — once  formulated 
in  an  unhappy  moment  concerning  a  rich  lady  interested 
in  social  reform — "  We  must  not  kill  the  goose  that 
lays  the  golden  eggs,"  has  never  been  despised  by  the 
suffragette  leaders  ;  (2)  the  rowdy  element  among  women 
which  is  not  so  much  moved  to  adopt  the  methods  for 
the  sake  of  the  cause  as  to  adopt  the  cause  for  the  sake 
of  the  methods,  so  that  in  the  case  of  their  special 
emotional  temperament  it  may  be  said,  reversing  an 
ancient  phrase,  that  the  means  justify  the  end ;  this 
element  of  noisy  explosiveness,  always  found  in  a  certain 
proportion  of  women,  though  latent  under  ordinary 
circumstances,  is  easily  aroused  by  stimulation,  and  in 
every  popular  revolt  the  wildest  excesses  are  the  acts 
of  women.    (3)  In  this  small  but  important  group  we  find 


THE    WOMAN'S    MOVEMENT  77 

women  of  rare  and  beautiful  character  who,  hypnotized 
by  the  enthralling  influence  of  an  idea,  and  often  having 
no  great  intellectual  power  of  their  own,  are  even  un- 
conscious of  the  vulgarity  that  accompanies  them, 
and  gladly  sacrifice  themselves  to  a  cause  that  seems 
to  be  sacred  ;  these  are  the  saints  and  martyrs  of  every 
movement. 

When  we  thus  analyse  the  suffragette  outburst  we 
see  that  it  is  really  compounded  out  of  quite  varied 
elements :  a  conventionally  respectable  element,  a 
rowdy  element,  and  an  ennobling  element.  It  is,  there- 
fore, equally  unreasonable  to  denounce  its  vices  or  to 
idealize  its  virtues.  It  is  more  profitable  to  attempt 
to  balance  its  services  and  its  disservices  to  the  cause 
of  women's  suffrage. 

Looked  at  dispassionately,  the  two  main  disadvantages 
of  the  suffragette  agitation — and  they  certainly  seem 
at  the  first  glance  very  comprehensive  objections — 
lie  in  its  direction  and  in  its  methods.  There  are  two 
vast  bodies  of  people  who  require  to  be  persuaded  in 
order  to  secure  woman's  suffrage  :  first  women  them- 
selves, and  secondly  their  men-folk,  who  at  present 
monopolize  the  franchise.  Until  the  majority  of  both 
men  and  women  are  educated  to  understand  the  justice 
and  reasonableness  of  this  step,  and  until  men  are  per- 
suaded that  the  time  has  come  for  practical  action, 
the  most  violent  personal  assaults  on  cabinet  ministers 
— supposing  such  political  methods  to  be  otherwise 
unobjectionable — are  beside  the  mark.  They  are  aimed 
in  the  wrong  direction.    This  is  so  even  when  we  leave 


78  THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

aside  the  fact  that  politicians  are  sufficiently  converted 
already.  The  primary  task  of  women  suffragists  is 
to  convert  their  own  sex.  Indeed  it  may  be  said  that 
that  is  their  whole  task.  Whenever  the  majority  of 
women  are  persuaded  that  they  ought  to  possess  the 
vote,  we  may  be  quite  sure  that  they  will  communicate 
that  persuasion  to  their  men-folk  who  are  able  to  give 
them  the  vote.  The  conversion  of  the  majority  of  women 
to  a  belief  in  women's  suffrage  is  essential  to  its  attain- 
ment because  it  is  only  by  the  influence  of  the  women 
who  belong  to  him,  whom  he  knows  and  loves  and  re- 
spects, that  the  average  man  is  likely  to  realize  that, 
as  Ellen  Key  puts  it,  "a  ballot  paper  in  itself  no  more 
injures  the  delicacy  of  a  woman's  hand  than  a  cooking 
recipe."  The  antics  of  women  in  the  street,  however 
earnest  those  women  may  be,  only  leave  him  indifferent, 
even  hostile,  at  most,  amused. 

It  may  be  added  that  in  any  case  it  would  be  un- 
desirable, even  if  possible,  to  bestow  the  suffrage  on 
women  so  long  as  only  a  minority  have  the  wish  to  exer- 
cise it.  It  would  be  contrary  to  sound  public  policy. 
It  would  not  only  discredit  political  rights,  but  it  would 
tend  to  give  the  woman's  vote  too  narrow  and  one- 
sided a  character.  To  grant  women  the  right  to  vote 
is  a  different  matter  from  granting  women  the  right  to 
enter  a  profession.  In  order  to  give  women  the  right 
to  be  doctors  or  lawyers  it  is  not  necessary  that  women 
generally  should  be  convinced  of  the  advantage  of  such 
a  step.  The  matter  chiefly  concerns  the  very  small 
number   of  women   who   desire  the  privilege.     But  the 


THE    WOMAN'S    MOVEMENT  79 

women  who  vote  will  be  in  some  measure  legislating 
for  women  generally,  and  it  is  therefore  necessary  that 
women  generally  should  participate. 

But  even  if  it  is  admitted — although,  as  we  have 
seen,  there  is  a  twofold  reason  for  not  making  such 
an  admission — that  the  suffragettes  are  justified  in 
regarding  politicians  as  the  obstacles  in  the  way  of 
their  demands,  there  still  remains  the  question  of  the 
disadvantage  of  their  method.  This  method  is  by 
some  euphemistically  described  as  the  introduction 
of  "  nagging  "  into  politics ;  but  even  at  this  mild  esti- 
mate of  its  character  the  question  may  still  be  asked 
whether  the  method  is  calculated  to  attain  the  desired 
end.  One  hears  women  suffragettes  declare  that  this 
is  the  only  kind  of  argument  men  understand.  There 
is,  however,  in  the  masculine  mind — and  by  no  means 
least  when  it  is  British — an  element  which  strongly 
objects  to  be  worried  and  bullied  even  into  a  good  course 
of  action.  The  suffragettes  have  done  their  best  to 
stimulate  that  element  of  obstinacy.  Even  among 
men  who  viewed  the  matter  from  an  unprejudiced 
standpoint  many  felt  that,  necessary  as  woman's  suffrage 
is,  the  policy  of  the  suffragettes  rendered  the  moment 
unfavourable  for  its  adoption.  It  is  a  significant  fact 
that  in  the  countries  which  have  so  far  granted  women 
the  franchise  no  methods  in  the  slightest  degree  resembling 
those  of  the  suffragettes  have  ever  been  practised. 
It  is  not  easy  to  imagine  Australia  tolerating  such 
methods,  and  in  Finland  full  Parliamentary  rights 
were   freely   granted,    as   is   generally   recognized,    pre- 


80  THE   TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

cisely  as  a  mark  of  gratitude  for  women's  helpfulness 
in  standing  side  by  side  with  their  men  in  a  great  political 
struggle.  The  policy  of  obstruction  adopted  by  the 
English  suffragettes,  with  its  "  tactics  "  of  opposing  at 
election  times  the  candidates  of  the  very  party  whose 
leaders  they  are  imploring  to  grant  them  the  franchise, 
was  so  foolish  that  it  is  little  wonder  that  many  doubted 
whether  women  at  all  understand  the  methods  of  politics, 
or  are  yet  fitted  to  take  a  responsible  part  in  political 
life. 

The  suffragette  method  of  persuading  public  men 
seems  to  be,  on  the  whole,  futile,  even  if  it  were  directed 
at  the  proper  quarter,  and  even  if  it  were  in  itself  a 
justifiable  method.  But  it  would  be  possible  to  grant 
these  "  ifs  "  and  still  to  feel  that  a  serious  injury  is  done 
to  the  cause  of  woman's  suffrage  when  the  method  of 
violence  is  adopted  by  women.  Some  suffragettes 
have  argued,  in  this  matter,  that  in  political  crises 
men  also  have  acted  just  as  badly  or  worse.  But, 
even  if  we  assume  that  this  is  the  case,1  it  has 
been  one  of  the  chief  arguments  hitherto  for  the 
admission  of  women  into  political  life  that  they  exercise 
an  elevating  and  refining  influence,  so  that  their  entrance 
into  this  field  will  serve  to  purify  politics.  That,  no 
doubt,  is  an  argument  mostly  brought  forward  by  men, 
and  may  be  regarded  as,  in  some  measure,  an  amiable 

1  It  must  not  be  too  hastily  assumed.  Unless  we  go  back  to 
ancient  plots  of  the  Guy  Fawkes  type  (now  only  imitated  by  self-styled 
anarchists),  the  leaders  of  movements  of  political  reform  have  rarely, 
if  ever,  organized  outbursts  of  violence ;  such  violence,  when  it 
occurred,  has  been  the  spontaneous  and  unpremeditated  act  of  a  mob. 


THE   WOMAN'S    MOVEMENT  81 

masculine  delusion,  since  most  of  the  refining  and 
elevating  elements  in  civilization  probably  owe  their  origin 
not  to  women  but  to  men.  But  it  is  not  altogether  a 
delusion.  In  the  virtues  of  force — however  humbly 
those  virtues  are  to  be  classed — women,  as  a  sex,  can 
never  be  the  rivals  of  men,  and  when  women  attempt 
to  gain  their  ends  by  the  demonstration  of  brute  force 
they  can  only  place  themselves  at  a  disadvantage. 
They  are  laying  down  the  weapons  they  know  best 
how  to  use,  and  adopting  weapons  so  unsuitable  that 
they  only  injure  the  users. 

Many  women,  speaking  on  behalf  of  the  suffragettes, 
protest  against  the  idea  that  women  must  always  be 
"  charming."  And  if  "  charm  "  is  to  be  understood 
in  so  narrow  and  conventionalized  a  sense  that  it  means 
something  which  is  incompatible  with  the  developed 
natural  activities,  whether  of  the  soul  or  of  the  body, 
then  such  a  protest  is  amply  justified.  But  in  the  larger 
sense,  "  charm  " — which  means  the  power  to  effect 
work  without  employing  brute  force — is  indispensable 
to  women.  Charm  is  a  woman's  strength  just  as  strength 
is  a  man's  charm.  And  the  justification  for  women  in 
this  matter  is  that  herein  they  represent  the  progress 
of  civilization.  All  civilization  involves  the  substitution 
in  this  respect  of  the  woman's  method  for  the  man's. 
In  the  last  resort  a  savage  can  only  assert  his  rights 
by  brute  force.  But  with  the  growth  of  civilization 
the  wronged  man,  instead  of  knocking  down  his  opponent, 
employs  "  charm "  ;  in  other  words  he  engages  an 
advocate,  who,  by  the  exercise  of  sweet  reasonableness, 

G 


82         THE   TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

persuades  twelve  men  in  a  box  that  his  wrongs  must 
be  righted,  and  the  matter  is  then  finally  settled,  not 
by  man's  weapon,  the  fist,  but  by  woman's  weapon, 
the  tongue.  Nowadays  the  same  method  of  "  charm  " 
is  being  substituted  for  brute  force  in  international 
wrongs,  and  with  the  complete  substitution  of  arbi- 
tration for  war  the  woman's  method  of  charm  will  have 
replaced  the  man's  method  of  brute  force  along  the 
whole  line  of  legitimate  human  activity.  If  we  realize 
this  we  can  understand  why  it  is  that  a  group  of  women 
who,  even  in  the  effort  to  support  a  good  cause,  revert 
to  the  crude  method  of  violence  are  committing  a  double 
wrong.  They  are  wronging  their  own  sex  by  proving 
false  to  its  best  traditions,  and  they  are  wronging  civi- 
lization by  attempting  to  revive  methods  of  savagery 
which  it  is  civilization's  mission  to  repress.  There- 
fore it  may  fairly  be  held  that  even  if  the  methods  of 
the  suffragettes  were  really  adequate  to  secure  women's 
suffrage,  the  attainment  of  the  franchise  by  those 
methods  would  be  a  misfortune.  The  ultimate  loss 
would  be  greater  than  the  gain. 

If  we  hold  the  foregoing  considerations  in  mind  it 
is  difficult  to  avoid  the  conclusion  that  neither  in  their 
direction  nor  in  their  nature  are  the  methods  of  the 
suffragettes  fitted  to  attain  the  end  desired.  We  have 
still,  however,  to  consider  the  other  side  of  the  question. 

Whenever  an  old  movement  receives  a  strong  in- 
fusion of  new  blood,  whatever  excesses  or  mistakes 
may  arise,  it  is  very  unlikely  that  all  the  results  will 
be  on  the  same  side.     It  is  certainly  not  so  in  this  case. 


THE    WOMAN'S    MOVEMENT  83 

Even  the  opposition  to  woman's  suffrage  which  the 
suffragettes  are  responsible  for,  and  the  Anti-Suffrage 
societies  which  they  have  called  into  active  existence, 
are  not  an  unmitigated  disadvantage.  Every  movement 
of  progress  requires  a  vigorous  movement  of  opposition 
to  stimulate  its  progress,  and  the  clash  of  discussion 
can  only  be  beneficial  in  the  end  to  the  progressive 
cause. 

But  the  immense  advantage  of  the  activity  of  the 
suffragettes  has  been  indirect.  It  has  enabled  the  great 
mass  of  ordinary  sensible  women  who  neither  join 
Suffrage  societies  nor  Anti-Suffrage  societies  to  think 
for  themselves  on  this  question.  Until  a  few  years  ago, 
while  most  educated  women  were  vaguely  aware  of 
the  existence  of  a  movement  for  giving  women  the 
vote,  they  only  knew  of  it  as  something  rather  un- 
practical and  remote  ;  its  reality  had  never  been  brought 
home  to  them.  When  women  witnessed  the  eruption 
into  the  streets  of  a  band  of  women — most  of  them 
apparently  women  much  like  themselves — who  were 
so  convinced  that  the  franchise  must  be  granted  to  women, 
here  and  now,  that  they  were  prepared  to  face  publicity, 
ridicule,  and  even  imprisonment,  then  "  votes  for  women  " 
became  to  them,  for  the  first  time,  a  real  and  living  issue. 
In  a  great  many  cases,  certainly,  they  realized  that 
they  intensely  disliked  the  people  who  behaved  in  this 
way  and  any  cause  that  was  so  preached.  But  in  a 
great  many  other  cases  they  realized,  for  the  first  time 
definitely,  that  the  demand  of  votes  for  women  was 
a  reasonable  demand,  and  that  they  were  themselves 


84         THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

suffragists,  though  they  had  no  wish  to  take  an  active 
part  in  the  movement,  and  no  real  sympathy  with  its 
more  "  militant  "  methods.  There  can  be  no  doubt 
that  in  this  way  the  suffragettes  have  performed  an 
immense  service  for  the  cause  of  women's  suffrage. 
It  has  been  for  the  most  part  an  indirect  and  undesigned 
service,  but  in  the  end  it  will  perhaps  more  than  serve 
to  counterbalance  the  disadvantages  attached  to  their 
more  conscious  methods  and  their  more  deliberate 
aims. 

If,  as  we  may  trust,  this  service  will  be  the  main  out- 
come of  the  suffragette  phase  of  the  women's  movement, 
it  is  an  outcome  to  be  thankful  for  ;  we  may  then  re- 
member with  gratitude  the  ardent  enthusiasm  of  the 
suffragettes  and  forget  the  foolish  and  futile  ways  in 
which  it  was  manifested.  There  has  never  been  any 
doubt  as  to  the  ultimate  adoption  of  women's  suffrage  ; 
its  gradual  extension  among  the  more  progressive 
countries  of  the  world  sufficiently  indicates  that  it  will 
ultimately  reach  even  to  the  most  backward  countries. 
Its  accomplishment  in  England  has  been  gradual, 
although  it  is  here  so  long  since  the  first  steps  were  taken, 
not  because  there  has  been  some  special  and  malignant 
opposition  to  it  on  the  part  of  men  in  general  and 
politicians  in  particular,  but  simply  because  England 
is  an  old  and  conservative  country,  with  a  very  ancient 
constitutional  machinery  which  effectually  guards  against 
the  hasty  realization  of  any  scheme  of  reform.  This 
particular  reform,  however,  is  not  an  isolated  or 
independent  scheme ;    it  is  an  essential  part  of  a  great 


THE    WOMAN'S    MOVEMENT  85 

movement  in  the  social  equalization  of  the  sexes  which 
has  been  going  on  for  centuries  in  our  civilization,  a 
movement  such  as  may  be  correspondingly  traced 
in  the  later  stages  of  the  civilizations  of  antiquity. 
Such  a  movement  we  may  by  our  efforts  help  forward, 
we  may  for  a  while  retard,  but  it  is  a  part  of  civilization, 
and  it  would  be  idle  to  imagine  that  we  can  affect  the 
ultimate  issue. 

That  the  issue  of  women's  suffrage  may  be  reached 
in  England  within  a  reasonable  period  is  much  to  be 
desired  for  the  sake  of  the  woman's  movement  in  the 
larger  sense,  which  has  nothing  to  do  with  politics, 
and  is  now  impeded  by  this  struggle.  The  enfranchise- 
ment of  women,  Miss  Frances  Cobbe  declared  thirty 
years  ago,  is  "  the  crown  and  completion  "  of  all  pro- 
gress in  women's  movement.  "  Votes  for  women," 
exclaims,  more  youthfully  but  not  less  unreasonably, 
Miss  Christabel  Pankhurst,  "  means  a  new  Heaven  and 
a  new  Earth."  But  women's  suffrage  no  more  means 
a  new  Heaven  or  even  a  new  Earth  than  it  means, 
as  other  people  fear,  a  new  Purgatory  and  a  new  Hell. 
We  may  see  this  quite  plainly  in  Australasia.  Women's 
votes  aid  in  furthering  social  legislation  and  contribute 
to  the  passing  of  acts  which  have  their  good  side,  and, 
no  doubt,  like  everything  else,  their  bad  side.  As  Eliza- 
beth Cady  Stanton,  who  devoted  her  life  to  the  political 
enfranchisement  of  women,  declared,  the  ballot  is, 
at  most,  only  the  vestibule  to  women's  emancipation. 
Man's  suffrage  has  not  introduced  the  millennium, 
and  it  is  foolish  to  suppose  that  woman's  suffrage  can. 


86  THE   TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

It  is  merely  an  act  of  justice  and  a  reasonable  condition 
of  social  hygiene. 

The  attainment  of  the  suffrage,  if  it  is  a  beginning 
and  not  an  end,  will  thus  have  a  real  and  positive  value 
in  liberating  the  woman's  movement  from  a  narrow  and 
sterilizing  phase  of  its  course.  In  England,  especially, 
the  woman's  movement  has  in  the  past  largely  confined 
itself  to  imitating  men  and  to  obtaining  the  same  work 
and  the  same  rights  as  men.  Putting  the  matter  more 
broadly,  it  may  be  said  that  it  has  been  the  aim  of  the 
woman's  movement  to  secure  woman's  claims  as  a 
human  being  rather  than  as  woman.  But  that  is  only 
half  the  task  of  the  woman's  movement,  and  perhaps 
not  the  most  essential  half.  Women  can  never  be  like 
men,  any  more  than  men  can  be  like  women.  It  is 
their  unlikeness  which  renders  them  indispensable  to 
each  other,  and  which  also  makes  it  imperative  that 
each  sex  should  have  its  due  share  in  moulding  the 
conditions  of  life.  Woman's  function  in  life  can  never 
be  the  same  as  man's,  if  only  because  women  are  the 
mothers  of  the  race.  That  is  the  point,  the  only  point, 
at  which  women  have  an  uncontested  supremacy  over 
men.  The  most  vital  problem  before  our  civilization 
to-day  is  the  problem  of  motherhood,  the  question 
of  creating  the  human  beings  best  fitted  for  modern 
life,  the  practical  realization  of  a  sound  eugenics.  Man- 
ouvrier,  the  distinguished  anthropologist,  who  carries 
feminism  to  its  extreme  point  in  the  scientific  sphere, 
yet  recognizes  the  fundamental  fact  that  "  a  woman's 
part   is  to  make   children."     But  he  clearly  perceives 


THE    WOMAN'S   MOVEMENT  87 

also  that  "  in  all  its  extent  and  all  its  consequences 
that  part  is  not  surpassed  in  importance,  in  difficulty, 
or  in  dignity,  by  the  man's  part."  On  the  contrary 
it  is  a  part  which  needs  "  an  amount  of  intelligence 
incontestably  superior,  and  by  far,  to  that  required  by 
most  masculine  occupations."  1  We  are  here  at  the  core 
of  the  woman's  movement.  And  the  full  fruition  of 
that  movement  means  that  women,  by  virtue  of  their 
supremacy  in  this  matter,  shall  take  their  proper  share 
in  legislation  for  life,  not  as  mere  sexless  human  beings, 
but  as  women,  and  in  accordance  with  the  essential 
laws  of  their  own  nature  as  women. 


11 

There  is  a  further  question.  Is  it  possible  to  discern 
the  actual  embodiment  of  this  new  phase  of  the  woman 
movement  ?    I  think  it  is. 

To  those  who  are  accustomed  to  watch  the  emotional 
pulse  of  mankind,  nothing  has  seemed  so  remarkable 
during  recent  years  as  the  eruption  of  sex  questions 
in  Germany.  We  had  always  been  given  to  under- 
stand that  the  sphere  of  women  and  the  laws  of  marriage 
had  been  definitely  prescribed  and  fixed  in  Germany 
for  at  least  two  thousand  years,  since  the  days  of  Tacitus, 
in  fact,  and  with  the  best  possible  results.  Germans 
assured  the  world  in  stentorian  tones  that  only  in  Ger- 
many could  young  womanhood  be  seen  in  all  its  purity, 
and  that  in  the  German  Hausfrau  the  supreme  ideal 

1  Revue  de  I'Ecole  d' Anthropologic,  February,  1909,  p.  50. 


88         THE   TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

had  been  reached,  the'  woman  whose  great  mission  is 
to  keep  alive  the  perennial  fire  of  the  ancient  German 
hearth.  Here  and  there,  indeed,  the  quiet  voice  of  science 
was  heard  in  Germany ;  thus  Schrader,  the  distinguished 
investigator  of  Teutonic  origins,  in  commenting  on  the 
oft-quoted  testimony  of  Tacitus  to  the  chastity  of  the 
German  women,  has  appositely  referred  to  the  detailed 
evidences  furnished  by  the  Committee  of  pastors  of 
the  Evangelical  Church  as  to  the  extreme  prevalence 
of  unchastity  among  the  women  of  rural  Germany, 
and  argued  that  these  widespread  customs  must  be 
very  ancient  and  deep-rooted.1  But  Germans  in  general 
refused  to  admit  that  Tacitus  had  only  used  the  idea 
of  German  virtue  as  a  stick  to  beat  his  own  fellow- 
countrywomen  with. 

The  Social-Democratic  movement,  which  has  so  largely 
overspread  industrial  and  even  intellectual  Germany, 
prepared  the  way  for  a  less  traditional  and  idealistic 
way  of  feeling  in  regard  to  these  questions.  The  publi- 
cation by  Bebel  of  a  book,  Die  Frau,  in  which  the  leader 
of  the  German  Social-Democratic  party  set  forth  the 
Socialist  doctrine  of  the  position  of  women  in  society, 
marked  the  first  stage  in  the  new  movement.  This 
book  exercised  a  wide  influence,  more  especially  on 
uncritical  readers.     It  is,  indeed,  from  a  scientific  point 

1  O.  Schrader,  Reallexicon,  Art.  "  Keuschheit."  He  considers  that 
Tacitus  merely  shows  that  German  women  were  usually  chaste  after 
marriage.  A  few  centuries  later,  Lea  points  out,  Salvianus,  while 
praising  the  barbarians  generally  for  their  chastity,  makes  an  exception 
in  the  case  of  the  Alemanni.  (See  also  Havelock  Ellis,  Studies  in  the 
Psychology  of  Sex,  Vol.  VI,  "  Sex  in  Relation  to  Society,"  pp.  382-4.) 


THE   WOMAN'S   MOVEMENT  89 

of  view  a  worthless  book — if  a  book  in  which  genuine 
emotions  are  brought  to  the  cause  of  human  freedom 
and  social  righteousness  may  ever  be  so  termed — but 
it  struck  a  rude  blow  at  the  traditions  of  Teutonic  senti- 
ment. With  something  of  the  rough  tone  and  temper 
of  the  great  peasant  who  initiated  the  German  Reforma- 
tion, a  man  who  had  himself  sprung  from  the  people, 
and  who  knew  of  what  he  was  speaking,  here  set  down 
in  downright  fashion  the  actual  facts  as  to  the  position 
of  women  in  Germany,  as  well  as  what  he  conceived 
to  be  the  claims  of  justice  in  regard  to  that  position, 
slashing  with  equal  vigour  alike  at  the  absurdities  of 
conventional  marriage  and  of  prostitution,  the  obverse 
and  the  reverse,  he  declared,  of  a  false  society.  The 
emotional  renaissance  with  which  we  are  here  concerned 
seems  to  have  no  special  and  certainly  no  exclusive 
association  with  the  Social-Democratic  movement, 
but  it  can  scarcely  be  doubted  that  the  permeation 
of  a  great  mass  of  the  German  people  by  the  socialistic 
conceptions  which  in  their  bearing  on  women  have  been 
rendered  so  familiar  by  Bebel's  exposition  has  furnished, 
as  it  were,  a  ready-made  sounding-board  which  has 
given  resonance  and  effect  to  voices  which  might  other- 
wise have  been  quickly  lost  in  vacuity. 

There  is  another  movement  which  counts  for  some- 
thing in  the  renaissance  we  are  here  concerned  with, 
though  for  considerably  less  than  one  might  be  led  to 
expect.  What  is  specifically  known  as  the  "  woman's 
rights'  movement  "  is  in  no  degree  native  to  Germany, 
though  Hippel  is  one  of  the  pioneers  of  the  woman's 


go  THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

movement,  and  it  is  only  within  recent  years  that  it 
has  reached  Germany.  It  is  alien  to  the  Teutonic  feminine 
mind,  because  in  Germany  the  spheres  of  men  and  women 
are  so  far  apart  and  so  unlike  that  the  ideal  of  imitating 
men  fails  to  present  itself  to  a  German  woman's  mind. 
The  delay,  moreover,  in  the  arrival  of  the  woman's 
movement  in  Germany  had  given  time  for  a  clearer 
view  of  that  movement  and  a  criticism  of  its  defects  to 
form  even  in  the  lands  of  its  origin,  so  that  the  German 
woman  can  no  longer  be  caught  unawares  by  the  cry 
for  woman's  rights.  Still,  however  qualified  a  view 
might  be  taken  of  its  benefits,  it  had  to  be  recognized, 
even  in  Germany,  that  it  was  an  inevitable  movement, 
and  to  some  extent  at  all  events  indispensable  from  the 
woman's  point  of  view.  The  same  right  to  education 
as  men,  the  same  rights  of  public  meeting  and  discussion, 
the  same  liberty  to  enter  the  liberal  professions,  these 
are  claims  which  during  recent  years  have  been  widely 
made  by  German  women  and  to  some  extent  secured, 
while — as  is  even  more  significant — they  are  for  the 
most  part  no  longer  very  energetically  disputed.  The 
International  Congress  of  Women  which  met  in  Berlin 
in  1904  was  a  revelation  to  the  citizens  of  Berlin  of  the 
skill  and  dignity  with  which  women  could  organize 
a  congress  and  conduct  business  meetings.  It  was 
notable,  moreover,  in  that,  though  under  the  auspices 
of  an  International  Council,  it  showed  the  large  number 
of  German  women  who  are  already  entitled  to  take  a 
leading  part  in  the  movements  for  women's  welfare. 
Both  directly  and  indirectly,  indeed,  such  a  movement 


THE    WOMAN'S    MOVEMENT  91 

cannot  be  otherwise  than  specially  beneficial  in  Germany. 
The  Teutonic  reverence  for  woman,  the  assertion  of 
the  "  aliquid  divinum,"  has  sometimes  been  accompanied 
by  the  openly  expressed  conviction  that  she  is  a  fool. 
Outside  Germany  it  would  not  be  easy  to  find  the  re- 
presentative philosophers  of  a  nation  putting  forward 
so  contemptuous  a  view  of  women  as  is  set  forth  by 
Schopenhauer  or  by  Nietzsche,  while  even  within  recent 
years  a  German  physician  of  some  ability,  the  late 
Dr.  Mobius,  published  a  book  on  the  "  physiological 
weak-mindedness  of  women." 

The  new  feminine  movement  in  Germany  has  received 
highly  important  support  from  the  recent  development 
of  German  science.  The  German  intellect,  exceedingly 
comprehensive  in  its  outlook,  ploddingly  thorough, 
and  imperturbably  serious,  has  always  taken  the  leading 
and  pioneering  part  in  the  investigation  of  sexual 
problems,  whether  from  the  standpoint  of  history, 
biology,  or  pathology.  Early  in  the  nineteenth  century, 
when  even  more  courage  and  resolution  were  needed 
to  face  the  scientific  study  of  such  questions  than  is 
now  the  case,  German  physicians,  unsupported  by  any 
co-operation  in  other  countries,  were  the  pioneers  in 
exploring  the  paths  of  sexual  pathology.1  From  the 
antiquarian  side,  Bachofen,  more  than  half  a  century 
ago,  put  forth  his  conception  of  the  exalted  position 
of  the  primitive  mother  which,   although  it  has  been 

1  Thus  Kaan,  anticipating  Krafft-Ebing,  published  a  Psychopathia 
Sexualis,  in  1844,  and  Casper,  in  1852,  was  the  first  medical  authority 
to  point  out  that  sexual  inversion  is  sometimes  due  to  a  congenital 
psychic  condition. 


92  THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

considerably  battered  by  subsequent  research,  has 
been  by  no  means  without  its  value,  and  is  of  special 
significance  from  the  present  standpoint,  because  it 
sprang  from  precisely  the  same  view  of  life  as  that 
animating  the  German  women  who  are  to-day  in- 
augurating the  movement  we  are  here  concerned  with. 
From  the  medical  side  the  late  Professor  Krafft-Ebing 
of  Vienna  and  Dr.  Albert  Moll  of  Berlin  are  recognized 
throughout  the  world  as  leading  authorities  on  sexual 
pathology,  and  in  recent  times  many  other  German 
physicians  of  the  first  authority  can  be  named  in  this 
field  ;  while  in  Austria  Dr.  F.  S.  Krauss  and  his  coadjutors 
in  the  annual  volumes  of  Anthropophyteia  are  diligently 
exploring  the  rich  and  fruitful  field  of  sexual  folk-kre. 
The  large  volumes  of  the  Jahrbuch  fur  Sexuelle  Zwischen- 
stufen,  edited  by  Dr.  Magnus  Hirschfeld  of  Berlin,  have 
presented  discussions  of  the  commonest  of  sexual  aber- 
rations with  a  scientific  and  scholarly  thoroughness, 
a  practical  competence,  as  well  as  admirable  tone,  which 
we  may  seek  in  vain  in  other  countries.  In  Vienna, 
moreover,  Professor  Freud,  with  his  bold  and  original 
views  on  the  sexual  causation  of  many  abnormal  mental 
and  nervous  conditions,  and  his  psycho-analytic  method 
of  investigating  and  treating  them,  although  his  doctrines 
are  by  no  means  universally  accepted,  is  yet  exerting 
a  revolutionary  influence  all  over  the  world.  During 
the  last  ten  years,  indeed,  the  amount  of  German  scientific 
and  semi-scientific  literature,  dealing  with  every  aspect 
of  the  sexual  question,  and  from  every  point  of  view, 
is   altogether   unparalleled.      It   need   scarcely   be   said 


THE    WOMAN'S    MOVEMENT  93 

that  much  of  this  literature  is  superficial  or  worthless. 
But  much  of  it  is  sound,  and  it  would  seem  that  on  the 
whole  it  is  this  portion  of  it  which  is  most  popular. 
Thus  Dr.  August  Forel,  formerly  professor  of  psychiatry 
at   Zurich   and   a  physician   of   world-wide   reputation, 
published  a  few  years  ago  at  Munich  a  book  on  the 
sexual  question,  Die  Sexuelle  Frage,   in  which  all  the 
questions  of  the  sexual  life,  biological,  medical,  and  social, 
are   seriously   discussed   with   no   undue   appeal   to   an 
ignorant  public ;  it  had  an  immediate  success  and  a  large 
sale.     Dr.  Forel  had  not  entered  this  field  before  ;  he 
had  merely  come  to  the  conclusion  that   every  man 
at  the  end  of  his  life  ought  to  set  forth  his  observations 
and  conclusions  regarding  the  most  vital  of  questions. 
Again,  at  about  the  same  time,  Dr.  Iwan  Bloch,  of  Berlin, 
published  his  many-sided  work  on  the  sexual  life  of 
our  time,  Das  Sexualleben  Unserer  Zeit,  a  work  less  re- 
markable than  Forel's  for   the  weight  of   the  personal 
authority  expressed,  but  more  remarkable  by  the  range 
of  its  learning  and  the  sympathetic  attitude  it  displayed 
towards   the  best   movements  of  the   day ;    this   book 
also  met  with  great  success.1    Still  more  recently  (1912) 
Dr.  Albert  Moll,  with  characteristic  scientific  thorough- 
ness, has  edited,  and  largely  himself  written,  a  truly  ency- 
clopaedic Handbuch  der  Sexualwissenschaften.  The  eminence 

1  Both  Forel's  and  Bloch's  books  have  become  well  known  through 
translations  in  England  and  America.  Dr.  Bloch  is  also  the  author  of 
an  extremely  erudite  and  thorough  history  of  syphilis,  which  has  gone 
far  to  demonstrate  that  this  disease  was  introduced  into  Europe  from 
America  on  the  first  discovery  of  the  New  World  at  the  end  of  the 
fifteenth  century. 


94  THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

of  the  writers  of  these  books  and  the  mental  calibre 
needed  to  read  them  suffice  to  show  that  we  are  not 
concerned,  as  a  careless  observer  might  suppose,  with 
a  matter  of  supply  and  demand  in  prurient  literature, 
but  with  the  serious  and  widespread  appreciation  of 
serious  investigations.  This  same  appreciation  is  shown 
not  only  by  several  bio-sociological  periodicals  of  high 
scientific  quality,  but  by  the  existence  of  a  journal  like 
Sexual-Problemc,  edited  by  Dr.  Max  Marcuse,  a  journal 
with  many  distinguished  contributors,  and  undoubtedly 
the  best  periodical  in  this  field  to  be  found  in  any  language. 
At  the  same  time  the  new  movement  of  German 
women,  however  it  may  arise  from  or  be  supported 
by  political  or  scientific  movements,  is  fundamentally 
emotional  in  its  character.  If  we  think  of  it,  every  great 
movement  of  the  Teutonic  soul  has  been  rooted  in  emotion. 
The  German  literary  renaissance  of  the  eighteenth 
century  was  emotional  in  its  origin  and  received  its 
chief  stimulus  from  the  contagion  of  the  new  irruption 
of  sentiment  in  France.  Even  German  science  is  often 
influenced,  and  not  always  to  its  advantage,  by  German 
sentiment.  The  Reformation  is  an  example  on  a  huge 
scale  of  the  emotional  force  which  underlies  German 
movements.  Luther,  for  good  and  for  evil,  is  the  most 
typical  of  Germans,  and  the  Luther  who  made  his  mark 
in  the  world — the  shrewd,  coarse,  superstitious  peasant 
who  blossomed  into  genius — was  an  avalanche  of  emotion, 
a  great  mass  of  natural  human  instincts  irresistible  in 
their  impetuosity.  When  we  bear  in  mind  this  general 
tendency  to  emotional  expansiveness  in  the  manifestations 


THE    WOMAN'S    MOVEMENT  95 

of  the  Teutonic  soul  we  need  feel  no  surprise  that  the 
present  movement  among  German  women  should  be, 
to  a  much  greater  extent  than  the  corresponding  move- 
ments in  other  countries,  an  emotional  renaissance. 
It  is  not,  first  and  last,  a  cry  for  political  rights,  but 
for  emotional  rights,  and  for  the  reasonable  regulation 
of  all  those  social  functions  which  are  founded  on  the 
emotions.1 

This  movement,  although  it  may  properly  be  said 
to  be  German,  since  its  manifestations  are  mainly  ex- 
hibited in  the  great  German  Empire,  is  yet  essentially 
a  Teutonic  movement  in  the  broader  sense  of  the  word. 
Germans  of  Austria,  Germans  of  Switzerland,  Dutch 
women,  Scandinavians,  have  all  been  drawn  into  this 
movement.  But  it  is  in  Germany  proper  that  they  all 
find  the  chief  field  of  their  activities. 

If  we  attempt  to  define  in  a  single  sentence  the  specific 
object  of  this  agitation  we  may  best  describe  it  as  based 
on  the  demands  of  woman  the  mother,  and  as  directed 
to  the  end  of  securing  for  her  the  right  to  control  and 
regulate  the  personal  and  social  relations  which  spring 
from  her  nature  as  mother  or  possible  mother.  Therein 
we  see  at  once  both  the  intimately  emotional  and  practical 
nature  of  this  new  claim  and  its  decisive  unlikeness  to 
the  earlier  woman  movement.  That  was  definitely 
a  demand  for  emancipation  ;  political  enfranchisement 
was  its  goal ;  its  perpetual  assertion  was  that  women 

1  This  attitude  is  plainly  reflected  even  in  many  books  written  by 
men ;  I  may  mention,  fur  instance,  Frenssen's  well-known  novel 
Hilligenlei  {Holyland). 


96  THE   TASK    OF    SOCIAL   HYGIENE 

must  be  allowed  to  do  everything  that  men  do.  But 
the  new  Teutonic  woman's  movement,  so  far  from  making 
as  its  ideal  the  imitation  of  men,  bases  itself  on  that 
which  most  essentially  marks  the  woman  as  unlike  the 
man. 

The  basis  of  the  movement  is  significantly  indicated 
by  the  title,  M utter schutz — the  protection  of  the  mother — 
originally  borne  by  "  a  Journal  for  the  reform  of  sexual 
morals,"  established  in  1905,  edited  by  Dr.  Helene 
Stocker,  of  Berlin,  and  now  called  Die  Neue  Generation. 
All  the  questions  that  radiate  outwards  from  the  maternal 
function  are  here  discussed  :  the  ethics  of  love,  prosti- 
tution ancient  and  modern,  the  position  of  illegitimate 
mothers  and  illegitimate  children,  sexual  hygiene,  the 
sexual  instruction  of  the  young,  etc.  It  must  not  be 
supposed  that  these  matters  are  dealt  with  from  the 
standpoint  of  a  vigilance  society  for  combating  vice. 
The  demand  throughout  is  for  the  regulation  of  life,  for 
reform,  but  for  reform  quite  as  much  in  the  direction 
of  expansion  as  of  restraint.  On  many  matters  of  detail, 
indeed,  there  is  no  agreement  among  these  writers, 
some  of  whom  approach  the  problems  from  the  social 
and  practical  side,  some  from  the  psychological  and 
philosophic  side,  others  from  the  medical,  legal,  or  his- 
torical sides. 

This  journal  was  originally  the  organ  of  the  association 
for  the  protection  of  mothers,  more  especially  unmarried 
mothers,  called  the  Bund  fiir  Mutterschutz.  There  are 
many  agencies  for  dealing  with  illegitimate  children, 
but  the  founders  of  this  association  started  from  the  con- 


THE    WOMAN'S    MOVEMENT  97 

viction  that  it  is  only  through  the  mother  that  the 
child  can  be  adequately  cared  for.  As  nearly  a  tenth 
of  the  children  born  in  Germany  are  illegitimate,  and  the 
conditions  of  life  into  which  such  children  are  thrown 
are  in  the  highest  degree  unfavourable,  the  question 
has  its  actuality.1  It  is  the  aim  of  the  Bund  fur  Midter- 
schutz  to  rehabilitate  the  unmarried  mother,  to  secure 
for  her  the  conditions  of  economic  independence — what- 
ever social  class  she  may  belong  to — and  ultimately 
to  effect  a  change  in  the  legal  status  of  illegitimate 

1  In  most  countries  illegitimacy  is  decreasing  ;  in  Germany  it  is 
steadily  increasing,  alike  in  rural  and  urban  districts.  Illegitimate  births 
are,  however,  more  numerous  in  the  cities  than  in  the  country.  Of  the 
constituent  states  of  the  German  Empire,  the  illegitimate  birth-rate 
is  lowest  in  Prussia,  highest  in  Saxony  and  Bavaria.  In  Munich  27  per 
cent  of  the  births  are  illegitimate.  (The  facts  are  clearly  brought 
out  in  an  article  by  Dr.  Arthur  Griinspan  in  the  Berliner  Tagblatt 
for  January  6,  1911,  reproduced  in  Die  Neue  Generation,  July,  1911.) 
Thus,  in  Prussia,  while  the  total  births  between  1903  and  1908, 
notwithstanding  a  great  increase  in  the  population,  have  only  in- 
creased 2"6  per  cent,  the  illegitimate  births  have  increased  as  much 
as  1  i*i  per  cent.  The  increase  is  marked  in  nearly  all  the  German 
States.  It  is  specially  marked  in  Saxony  ;  here  the  proportion  of 
illegitimate  births  to  the  total  number  of  births  was,  in  1903,  12 "51  per 
cent,  and  in  1908  it  had  already  risen  to  14*40  per  cent.  In  Berlin 
it  is  most  marked  ;  here  it  began  in  1891,  when  there  were  nearly 
47,000  legitimate  births  ;  by  1909,  however,  the  legitimate  births  had 
fallen  to  38,000,  a  decrease  of  ig'4  per  cent.  But  illegitimate  births  rose 
during  the  same  period  from  nearly  7000  to  over  9000,  an  increase  of 
33  per  cent.  The  proportion  of  illegitimate  births  to  the  total  births  is 
now  over  20  per  cent,  so  that  to  every  four  legitimate  children  there 
is  rather  more  than  one  illegitimate  child.  It  may  be  said  that  this  is 
merely  due  to  an  increasing  proportion  of  unmarried  women.  That, 
however,  is  not  the  case.  The  marriage-rate  is  on  the  whole  rising, 
and  the  average  age  of  women  at  marriage  is  becoming  lower  rather 
than  higher.  Griinspan  considers  that  this  increase  in  illegitimacy 
is  likely  to  continue,  and  he  is  inclined  to  attribute  it  less  to  economic 
than  to  social-psychological  causes. 

n 


98         THE   TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

mothers  and  children  alike.  The  Bund,  which  is  directed 
by  a  committee  in  which  social,  medical,  and  legal 
interests  are  alike  represented,  already  possesses  numerous 
branches,  in  addition  to  its  head-quarters  in  Berlin, 
and  is  beginning  to  initiate  practical  measures  on  the 
lines  of  its  programme,  notably  Homes  for  Mothers, 
of  which  it  has  established  nearly  a  dozen  in  different 
parts  of  Germany. 

In  191 1  the  first  International  Congress  for  the  Pro- 
tection of  Mothers  and  for  Sexual  Reform  was  held 
at  Dresden,  in  connection  with  the  great  Exhibition 
of  Hygiene.  As  a  result  of  this  Congress,  an  International 
Union  was  constituted,  representing  Germany,  Austria, 
Italy,  Sweden,  and  Holland,  which  may  probably  be 
taken  to  be  the  countries  which  have  so  far  manifested 
greatest  interest  in  the  programme  of  sexual  reform 
based  on  recognition  of  the  supreme  importance  of 
motherhood.  This  movement  may,  therefore,  be  said 
to  have  overcome  the  initial  difficulties,  the  antagonism, 
the  misunderstanding,  and  the  opprobrium,  which  every 
movement  in  the  field  of  sexual  reform  inevitably  en- 
counters, and  often  succumbs  to. 

It  would  be  a  mistake  to  regard  this  Association  as 
a  merely  philanthropic  movement.  It  claims  to  be 
"  An  Association  for  the  Reform  of  Sexual  Ethics," 
and  Die  Neue  Generation  deals  with  social  and  ethical 
rather  than  with  philanthropic  questions.  In  these 
respects  it  reflects  the  present  attitude  of  many  thoughtful 
German  women,  though  the  older  school  of  women's 
rights  advocates  still  holds  aloof.     We  may  here,  for 


THE    WOMAN'S    MOVEMENT  99 

instance,  find  a  statement  of  the  recent  discussion 
concerning  the  right  of  the  mother  to  destroy  her  off- 
spring before  birth.  This  has  been  boldly  claimed  for 
women  by  Countess  Gisela  von  Streitberg,  who  advocates 
a  return  to  the  older  moral  view  which  prevailed  not 
only  in  classic  antiquity,  but  even,  under  certain  con- 
ditions, in  Christian  practice,  until  Canon  law,  asserting 
that  the  embryo  had  from  the  first  an  independent  life, 
pronounced  abortion  under  all  circumstances  a  crime. 
Countess  von  Streitberg  takes  the  standpoint  that 
as  the  chief  risks  and  responsibilities  must  necessarily 
rest  upon  the  woman,  it  is  for  her  to  decide  whether 
she  will  permit  the  embryo  she  bears  to  develop.  Dr. 
Marie  Raschke,  taking  up  the  discussion  from  the  legal 
side,  is  unable  to  agree  that  abortion  should  cease  to 
be  a  punishable  offence,  though  she  advocates  consider- 
able modifications  in  the  law  on  this  matter.  Dr.  Sieg- 
fried Weinberg,  summarizing  this  discussion,  again  from 
the  legal  standpoint,  considers  that  there  is  considerable 
right  on  the  Countess's  side,  because  from  the  modern 
juridical  standpoint  a  criminal  enactment  is  only  justified 
because  it  protects  a  right,  and  in  law  the  embryo 
possesses  no  rights  which  can  be  injured.  From  the 
moral  standpoint,  also,  it  is  argued,  its  destruction 
often  becomes  justifiable  in  the  interests  of  the  com- 
munity. 

This  debatable  question,  while  instructive  as  an 
example  of  the  radical  manner  in  which  German  women 
are  now  beginning  to  face  moral  questions,  deals  only 
with  an  isolated  point  which  has  hardly  yet  reached 


ioo        THE   TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

the  sphere  of  practical  politics.1  It  is  more  interesting 
to  consider  the  general  conceptions  which  underlie 
this  movement,  and  we  can  hardly  do  this  better  than  by 
studying  the  writings  of  Ellen  Key,  who  is  not  only  one 
of  its  recognized  leaders,  but  may  be  said  to  present 
its  aims  and  ideals  in  a  broader  and  more  convinced 
manner  than  any  other  writer. 

Ellen  Key's  views  are  mainly  contained  in  three 
books,  Love  and  Marriage,  The  Century  of  the  Child,  and 
The  Women's  Movement,  in  which  form  they  enjoy  a  large 
circulation,  and  are  now  becoming  well  known,  through 
translations,  in  England  and  America.  She  carefully 
distinguishes  her  aims  from  what  she  regards  as  the 
American  conception  of  progress  in  woman's  movements, 
that  is  to  say  the  tendency  for  women  to  seek  to  capture 
the  activities  which  may  be  much  more  adequately 
fulfilled  by  the  other  sex,  while  at  the  same  time 
neglecting  the  far  weightier  matters  that  concern 
their  own  sex.  Man  and  woman  are  not  natural 
enemies  who  need  to  waste  their  energies  in  fighting 
over  their  respective  rights  and  privileges ;  in  spiritual  as 
in  physical  life  they  are  only  fruitful  together.  Women, 
indeed,  need  free  scope  for  their  activities — and  the  earlier 
aspirations  of  feminism  are  thus  justified — but  they 
need  it,  not  to  wrest  away  any  tasks  that  men  may  be 
better  fitted  to  perform,  but  to  play  their  part  in  that 
field  of  creative  life  which  is  peculiarly  their  own.  Ellen 
Key  would  say  that  the  highest  human  unit  is  triune  : 

1  I  have  discussed  this  point  in  Studies  in  the  Psychology  of  Sex, 
Vol.  VI,  "  Sex  in  Relation  to  Society,"  chap.  xn. 


THE    WOMAN'S    MOVEMENT  101 

father,  mother,  and  child.  Marriage,  therefore,  instead 
of  being,  as  it  is  to-day,  the  last  thing  to  be  thought  of 
in  education,  becomes  the  central  point  of  life.  In 
Ellen  Key's  conception,  "  those  who  love  each  other 
are  man  and  wife,"  and  by  love  she  means  not  a  temporary 
inclination,  but  "  a  synthesis  of  desire  and  friendship," 
just  as  the  air  is  a  mixture  of  oxygen  and  nitrogen.  It 
must  be  this  for  both  sexes  alike,  and  Ellen  Key  sees  a 
real  progress  in  what  seems  to  her  the  modern  tendency 
for  men  to  realize  that  the  soul  has  its  erotic  side,  and 
for  women  to  realize  that  the  senses  have.  She  has  no 
special  sympathy  with  the  cry  for  purity  in  masculine 
candidates  for  marriage  put  forward  by  some  women 
of  the  present  day.  She  observes  that  many  men  who 
have  painfully  struggled  to  maintain  this  ideal  meet 
with  disillusion,  for  it  is  not  the  masculine  lamb,  but 
much  more  the  spotted  leopard,  who  fascinates  women. 
The  notion  that  women  have  higher  moral  instincts 
than  men  Ellen  Key  regards  as  absurd.  The  majority 
of  Frenchwomen,  she  remarks,  were  against  Dreyfus, 
and  the  majority  of  Englishwomen  approved  the  South 
African  war.  The  really  fundamental  difference  between 
man  and  woman  is  that  he  can  usually  give  his  best  as 
a  creator,  and  she  as  a  lover,  that  his  value  is  according 
to  his  work  and  hers  according  to  her  love.  And  in  love 
the  demand  for  each  sex  alike  must  not  be  primarily 
for  a  mere  anatomical  purity,  but  for  passion  and  for 
sincerity. 

The  aim  of  love,  as  understood  by  Ellen  Key,  is  always 
marriage  and  the  child,  and  as  soon  as  the  child  comes 


LIBRARY 

SANTA 


102        THE   TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

into  question  society  and  the  State  are  concerned.  Before 
fruition,  love  is  a  matter  for  the  lovers  alone,  and  the 
espionage,    ceremony,    and   routine   now   permitted   or 
enjoined    are    both    ridiculous    and    offensive.      "  The 
flower  of  love  belongs  to  the  lovers,  and  should  remain 
their  secret ;  it  is  the  fruit  of  love  which  brings  them 
into  relation  to  society."     The  dominating  importance 
of  the  child,  the  parent  of  the  race  to  be,  alone  makes 
the   immense   social   importance   of   sexual   union.     It 
is  not  marriage  which  sanctifies  generation,  but  generation 
which  sanctifies  marriage.     From  the  point  of  view  of 
"  the  sanctity  of  generation  "  and  the  welfare  of  the 
race,  Ellen  Key  looks  forward  to  a  time  when  it  will 
be  impossible  for  a  man  and  woman  to  become  parents 
when   they   are  unlikely   to   produce   a   healthy   child, 
though    she    is    opposed    to    Neo-Malthusian    methods, 
partly   on   aesthetic  grounds  and  partly  on  the  more 
dubious  grounds  of  doubt  as  to  their  practical  efficiency  ; 
it  is  from  this  point  of  view  also  that  she  favours  sexual 
equality   in  matters  of  divorce,   the  legal  assimilation 
of  legitimate  and  illegitimate  children,  the  recognition 
of  unions  outside  marriage, — a  recognition  already  legally 
established    under    certain    circumstances    in    Sweden, 
in  such  a  way  as  to  confer  the  rights  of  legitimacy  on 
the  child, — and  she  is  even  prepared  to  advise  women 
under    some    conditions    to    become    mothers    outside 
marriage,  though  only  when  there  are  obstacles  to  legal 
marriage,   and  as  the  outcome  of  deliberate  will  and 
resolution.      In   these   and   many   similar   proposals   in 
detail,  set  forth  in  her  earlier  books,  it  is  clear  that  Ellen 


THE    WOMAN'S    MOVEMENT  103 

Key  has  sometimes  gone  beyond  the  mandate  of  her 
central  conviction,  that  love  is  the  first  condition  for 
increasing  the  vitality  alike  of  the  race  and  of  the  indi- 
viduality, and  that  the  question  of  love,  properly  con- 
sidered, is  the  question  of  creating  the  future  man. 
As  she  herself  has  elsewhere  quite  truly  pointed  out, 
practice  must  precede,  and  precede  by  a  very  long  time, 
the  establishment  of  definite  rules  in  matters  of  detail. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  a  point  with  which  Ellen  Key 
and  the  leaders  of  the  new  German  woman's  movement 
specially  concern  themselves  is  the  affectional  needs 
of  the  "  supernumerary "  woman  and  the  legitimation 
of  her  children.  There  is  an  excess  of  women  over  men, 
in  Germany  as  in  most  other  countries.  That  excess, 
it  is  said,  is  balanced  by  the  large  number  of  women 
who  do  not  wish  to  marry.  But  that  is  too  cheap  a 
solution  of  the  question.  Many  women  may  wish  to 
remain  unmarried,  but  no  woman  wishes  to  be  forced 
to  remain  unmarried.  Every  woman,  these  advocates 
of  the  rights  of  women  claim,  has  a  right  to  motherhood, 
and  in  exercising  the  right  under  sound  conditions 
she  is  benefiting  society.  But  our  marriage  system, 
in  the  rigid  form  which  it  has  long  since  assumed,  has 
not  now  the  elasticity  necessary  to  answer  these  demands. 
It  presents  a  solution  which  is  often  impossible,  always 
difficult,  and  perhaps  in  a  large  proportion  of  cases 
undesirable.  But  for  a  woman  who  is  shut  out  from 
marriage  to  grasp  at  the  vital  facts  of  love  and  mother- 
hood which  she  perhaps  regards,  unreasonably  or  not, 
as  the  supreme  things  in  the  world,  must  often  be  under 


104        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

such  conditions  a  disastrous  step,  while  it  is  always 
accompanied  by  certain  risks.  Therefore,  it  is  asked, 
why  should  there  not  be,  as  of  old  there  was,  a  relation- 
ship established  which  while  of  less  dignity  than  marriage, 
and  less  exclusive  in  its  demands,  should  yet  permit  a 
woman  to  enter  into  an  honourable,  open,  and  legally 
recognized  relationship  with  a  man  ?  Such  a  relation- 
ship a  woman  could  proclaim  to  the  whole  world,  if 
necessary,  without  reflecting  any  disesteem  upon  herself 
or  her  child,  while  it  would  give  her  a  legal  claim  on  her 
child's  father.  Such  a  relationship  would  be  substantially 
the  same  as  the  ancient  concubinate,  which  persisted 
even  in  Christendom  up  to  the  sixteenth  century.  Its 
establishment  in  Sweden  has  apparently  been  satis- 
factory, and  it  is  now  sought  to  extend  it  to  other 
countries.1 

It  is  interesting  to  compare,  or  to  contrast,  the  move- 
ment of  which  Ellen  Key  has  been  a  conspicuous  champion 
with  the  futile  movement  initiated  nearly  a  century  ago 
by  the  school  of  Saint-Simon  and  Prosper  Enfantin, 
in  favour  of   "la  femme  libre."2     That  earlier  move- 

1  It  is  remarkable  that  in  early  times  in  Spain  the  laws  recognized 
concubinage  {barragania)  as  almost  equal  to  marriage,  and  as  conferring 
equal  rights  on  the  child,  even  on  the  sons  of  the  clergy,  who  could  thus 
inherit  from  their  fathers  by  right  of  the  privileges  accorded  to  the 
concubine  or  barragana.  Barragania,  however,  was  not  real  marriage, 
and  in  many  regions  it  could  be  contracted  by  married  men  (R.  Alta- 
mira,  Historia  de  Espatia  y  de  la  Civilazacion  Espaiiola,  Vol.  I,  pp.  644 
ct  seq.). 

2  "  La  femme  libre,"  in  quest  of  whom  the  young  Saint-Simonians 
preached  a  crusade,  must  be  a  woman  of  reflection  and  intellect  who, 
having  meditated  on  the  fate  of  her  "  sisters,"  knowing  the  wants  of 
women,  and  having  sounded  those  feminine  capacities  which  man  has 


THE    WOMAN'S    MOVEMENT  105 

merit  had  no  doubt  its  bright  and  ideal  side,  but 
it  was  not  supported  by  a  sound  and  scientific 
view  of  life  ;  it  was  rooted  in  sand  and  soon  withered 
up.  The  kind  of  freedom  which  Ellen  Key  advocates 
is  not  a  freedom  to  dispense  with  law  and  order,  but 
rather  a  freedom  to  recognize  and  follow  true  law ; 
it  is  the  freedom  which  in  morals  as  well  as  in  politics 
is  essential  for  the  development  of  real  responsibility. 

never  completely  penetrated,  shall  give  forth  the  confession  of  her  sex, 
without  restriction  or  reserve,  in  such  a  manner  as  to  furnish  the  in- 
dispensable elements  for  formulating  the  rights  and  duties  of  woman. 
Saint  Simon  had  asked  Madame  de  Stael  to  undertake  this  role,  but  she 
failed  to  respond.  When  George  Sand  published  her  first  novels,  one 
Gueroult  was  commissioned  to  ascertain  if  the  author  of  Ldlia  would 
undertake  this  important  service.  He  found  a  badly  dressed  woman 
who  was  using  her  talents  to  gain  a  living,  but  was  by  no  means  anxious 
to  become  the  high  priestess  of  a  new  religion.  Even  after  his  dis- 
appointment Enfantin  looked  eagerly  forward  to  the  publication  of 
George  Sand's  Histoire  de  ma  Vie,  hoping  that  at  last  the  great  revela- 
tion was  coming,  and  he  was  again  disillusioned.  But  before  this 
Emile  Barrault  had  arisen  and  declared  that  in  the  East,  in  the  solitude 
of  the  harem,  "  la  femme  libre  "  would  be  found  in  the  person  of  some 
odalisque.  The  "  mission  of  the  mother  "  was  formed,  and  with 
Barrault  at  the  head  it  set  out  for  Constantinople.  All  were  dressed 
in  white  as  an  indication  of  the  vow  of  chastity  they  had  taken  before 
leaving  Paris,  and  on  the  road  they  begged  in  the  name  of  the  Mother. 
They  arrived  at  Constantinople  and  preached  the  faith  of  Saint-Simon 
to  the  Turks  in  French.  But  "  la  femme  libre  "  seemed  as  far  off  as 
ever,  and  they  resolved  to  go  to  Rotourma  in  Oceana,  there  to  establish 
the  religion  of  Saint-Simon  and  a  perfect  Government  which  might  serve 
as  a  model  to  the  States  of  Europe.  First,  however,  they  felt  it  a  duty 
to  make  certain  that  the  Mother  was  not  hiding  somewhere  in  Russia, 
and  they  went  therefore  to  Odessa,  but  the  Governor,  who  was  wanting 
in  sympathy,  speedily  turned  them  out,  and  having  realized  that 
Rotourma  was  some  distance  off,  the  mission  broke  up,  most  of  the 
members  going  to  Egypt  to  rejoin  Enfantin,  whom  the  Arabs,  struck 
by  his  beauty,  had  called  Abu-l-dhunich,  the  Father  of  the  World. 
(This  account  of  the  movement  is  based  on  that  given  by  Maxime  du 
Camp,  in  his  Souvenirs  Litteraires  ) 


106        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

People  talk,  Ellen  Key  remarks,  as  though  reform  in 
sexual  morality  meant  the  breaking  up  of  a  beautiful 
idyll,  while  the  idyll  is  impossible  as  long  as  the  only 
alternative  offered  to  so  many  young  men  and  women 
at  the  threshold  of  life  is  between  becoming  "  the  slave 
of  duty  or  the  slave  of  lust."  In  these  matters  we  already 
possess  licence,  and  the  only  sound  reform  lies  in  a  kind 
of  "  freedom  "  which  will  correct  that  licence  by  obedience 
to  the  most  fundamental  natural  instincts  acting  in 
harmony  with  the  claims  of  the  race,  which  claims, 
it  must  be  added,  cannot  be  out  of  harmony  with  the 
best  traditions  of  the  race.  Ellen  Key  would  agree 
with  a  great  German,  Wilhelm  von  Humboldt,  who 
wrote  more  than  a  century  ago  that  "  a  solicitude  for 
the  race  conducts  to  the  same  results  as  the  highest 
solicitude  for  the  most  beautiful  development  of  the 
inner  man."  The  modern  revolt  against  fossilized 
laws  is  inevitable  ;  it  is  already  in  progress,  and  we 
have  to  see  to  it  that  the  laws  written  upon  tables  of 
stone  in  their  inevitable  decay  only  give  place  to  the 
mightier  laws  written  upon  tables  of  flesh  and  blood. 
Life  is  far  too  rich  and  manifold,  Ellen  Key  says  again, 
to  be  confined  in  a  single  formula,  even  the  best ;  if 
our  ideal  has  its  worth  for  ourselves,  if  we  are  prepared 
to  live  for  it  and  to  die  for  it,  that  is  enough  ;  we  are 
not  entitled  to  impose  it  on  others.  The  conception 
of  duty  still  remains,  duty  to  love  and  duty  to  the  race. 
"  I  believe  in  a  new  ethics,"  Ellen  Key  declares  at 
the  end  of  The  Women's  Movement,  "  which  will  be  a 
synthesis  growing  out  of  the  nature  of  man  and  the  nature 


THE    WOMAN'S    MOVEMENT  107 

of  woman,  out  of  the  demands  of  the  individual  and  the 
demands  of  society,  out  of  the  pagan  and  the  Christian 
points  of  view,  out  of  the  resolve  to  mould  the  future 
and  out  of  piety  towards  the  past." 

No  reader  of  Ellen  Key's  books  can  fail  to  be  impressed 
by  the  remarkable  harmony  between  her  sexual  ethics 
and  the  conception  that  underlies  Sir  Francis  Galton's 
scientific  eugenics.  In  setting  forth  the  latest  aspects 
of  his  view  of  eugenics  before  the  Sociological  Society, 
Galton  asserted  that  the  improvement  of  the  race, 
in  harmony  with  scientific  knowledge,  would  come  about 
by  a  new  religious  movement,  and  he  gave  reasons  to 
show  why  such  an  expectation  is  not  unreasonable ; 
in  the  past  men  have  obeyed  the  most  difficult  marriage 
rules  in  response  to  what  they  believed  to  be  supernatural 
commands,  and  there  is  no  ground  for  supposing  that 
the  real  demands  of  the  welfare  of  the  race,  founded  on 
exact  knowledge,  will  prove  less  effective  in  calling  out 
an  inspiring  religious  emotion.  Writing  probably  at 
the  same  time,  Ellen  Key,  in  her  essay  entitled  Love 
and  Ethics,  set  forth  precisely  the  same  conception, 
though  not  from  the  scientific  but  from  the  emotional 
standpoint.  From  the  outset  she  places  the  sexual 
question  on  a  basis  which  brings  it  into  line  with  Galton's 
eugenics.  The  problem  used  to  be  concerned,  she  remarks, 
with  the  insistence  of  society  on  a  rigid  marriage  form, 
in  conflict  with  the  demand  of  the  individual  to  gratify 
his  desires  in  any  manner  that  seemed  good  to  him, 
while  now  it  becomes  a  question  of  harmonizing  the 
claims  of  the  improvement  of  the  race  with  the  claims 


108        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

of  the  individual  to  happiness  in  love.  She  points 
out  that  on  this  aspect  real  harmony  becomes  more 
possible.  Regard  for  the  ennoblement  of  the  race  serves 
as  a  bridge  from  a  chaos  of  conflicting  tendencies  to  a 
truer  conception  of  love,  and  "  love  must  become  on 
a  higher  plane  what  it  was  in  primitive  days — a  religion." 
She  compares  the  growth  of  the  conception  of  the  vital 
value  of  love  to  the  modern  growth  of  the  conception 
of  the  value  of  health  as  against  the  medieval  indifference 
to  hygiene.  It  is  inevitable  that  Ellen  Key,  approaching 
the  question  from  the  emotional  side,  should  lay  less 
stress  than  Galton  on  the  importance  of  scientific  in- 
vestigation in  heredity,  and  insist  mainly  on  the  value 
of  sound  instincts,  unfettered  by  false  and  artificial 
constraints,  and  taught  to  realize  that  the  physical  and 
the  psychic  aspects  of  life  are  alike  "  divine." 

It  would  obviously  be  premature  to  express  either 
approval  or  disapproval  of  the  conceptions  of  sexual 
morality  which  Ellen  Key  has  developed  with  such 
fervour  and  insight.  It  scarcely  seems  probable  that 
the  methods  of  sexual  union,  put  forward  as  an  alternative 
to  celibacy  by  some  of  the  adherents  of  the  new  move- 
ment, are  likely  to  become  widely  popular,  even  if 
legalized  in  an  increasing  number  of  countries.  I  have 
elsewhere  given  reasons  to  believe  that  the  path  of  pro- 
gress lies  mainly  in  the  direction  of  a  reform  of  the 
present  institution  of  marriage.1  The  need  of  such  reform 
is  pressing,  and  there  are  many  signs  that  it  is  being 

1  Studies  in  the  Psychology  of  Sex,  Vol.  VI,  "  Sex  in  Relation  to 
Society,"  chap.  x. 


THE    WOMAN'S    MOVEMENT  109 

recognized.  We  can  scarcely  doubt  that  the  advocates 
of  these  alternative  methods  of  sexual  union  will  do 
good  by  stimulating  the  champions  of  marriage  to  in- 
creased activity  in  the  reform  of  that  institution.  In 
such  matters  a  certain  amount  of  competition  sometimes 
has  a  remarkably  vivifying  effect. 

We  may  be  sure  that  women,  whose  interests  are 
so  much  at  stake  in  this  matter,  and  who  tend  to  look 
at  it  in  a  practical  rather  than  in  a  legal  and  theological 
spirit,  will  exert  a  powerful  influence  when  they  have 
acquired  the  ability  to  enforce  that  influence  by  the 
vote.  This  is  significantly  indicated  by  an  inquiry 
held  in  England  during  1910  by  the  Women's  Co-operative 
Guild.  A  number  of  women  who  had  held  official  positions 
in  the  Guild  were  asked  (among  other  questions)  whether 
or  not  they  were  in  favour  of  divorce  by  mutual  consent. 
Of  94  representative  women  conversant  with  affairs 
who  were  thus  consulted,  as  many  as  82  deliberately 
recorded  their  opinion  in  favour  of  divorce  by  mutual 
consent,  and  only  12  were  against  that  highly  important 
marriage  reform. 

It  is  probably  unnecessary  to  discuss  the  opinions 
of  other  leaders  in  this  movement,  though  there  are 
several,  such  as  Frau  Grete  Meisel-Hess,  whose  views 
deserve  study.  It  will  be  sufficiently  clear  in  what 
way  this  Teutonic  movement  differs  from  that  Anglo- 
Saxon  woman's  rights'  movement  with  which  we  have 
long  been  familiar.  These  German  women  fully  recognize 
that  women  are  entitled  to  the  same  human  rights 
as    men,    and    that    until    such    rights    are    attained 


no        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

"  feminism  "  still  has  a  proper  task  to  achieve.  But 
women  must  use  their  strength  in  the  sphere  for  which 
their  own  nature  fits  them.  Even  though  millions  of 
women  are  enabled  to  do  the  work  which  men  could  do 
better  the  gain  for  mankind  is  nil.  To  put  women  to 
do  men's  work  is  (Ellen  Key  has  declared)  as  foolish 
as  to  set  a  Beethoven  or  a  Wagner  to  do  engine-driving. 
It  has  probably  excited  surprise  in  the  minds  of  some 
who  have  been  impressed  by  the  magnitude  and  vitality 
of  this  movement  that  it  should  have  manifested  itself 
in  Germany  rather  than  in  England,  which  is  the  original 
home  of  movements  for  women's  emancipation,  or  in 
America,  where  they  have  reached  their  fullest  develop- 
ments. This,  however,  ceases  to  be  surprising  when  we 
realize  the  special  qualities  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  and 
Teutonic  temperaments  and  the  special  conditions 
under  which  the  two  movements  arose.  The  Anglo- 
Saxon  movement  was  a  special  application  to  women 
of  the  general  French  movement  for  the  logical  assertion 
of  abstract  human  rights.  That  special  application 
was  not  ardently  taken  up  in  France  itself,  though  first 
proclaimed  by  French  pioneers,1  partly  perhaps  because 
such  one-sided  applications  make  little  appeal  to  the 
French  mind,  and  mainly,  no  doubt,  because  women 
throughout  the  eighteenth  century  enjoyed  such  high 

1  It  is  worth  noting  that  a  Frenchwoman  has  been  called  "  the 
mother  of  modern  feminism."  Marie  de  Gournay,  who  died  in  1645  at 
the  age  of  eighty,  is  best  known  as  the  adopted  daughter  of  Montaigne, 
for  whom  she  cherished  an  enthusiastic  reverence,  becoming  the  first 
editor  of  his  essays.  Her  short  essay,  EgaliU  des  Hommes  et  des  Femmes, 
was  written  in  1622.   See  e.g.  M.  Schiff,  La  Fille  d' Alliance  de  Montaigne. 


THE    WOMAN'S    MOVEMENT  in 

social  consideration  and  exerted  so  much  influence 
that  they  were  not  impelled  to  rise  in  any  rebellious 
protest.  But  when  the  seed  was  brought  over  to  England, 
especially  in  the  representative  form  of  Mary  Wollstone- 
craft's  Vindication  of  the  Rights  of  Women,  it  fell  in  virgin 
soil  which  proved  highly  favourable  to  its  development. 
This  special  application  escaped  the  general  condemnation 
which  the  Revolution  had  brought  upon  French  ideas. 
Women  in  England  were  beginning  to  awaken  to  ideas, — 
as  women  in  Germany  are  now, — and  the  more  energetic 
and  intelligent  among  them  eagerly  seized  upon  con- 
ceptions which  furnished  food  for  their  activities.  In 
large  measure  they  have  achieved  their  aims,  and  even 
woman's  suffrage  has  been  secured  here  and  there, 
without  producing  any  notable  revolution  in  human 
affairs.  The  Anglo-Saxon  conception  of  feminine  pro- 
gress— beneficial  as  it  has  undoubtedly  been  in  many 
respects — makes  little  impression  in  Germany,  partly 
because  it  fails  to  appeal  to  the  emotional  Teutonic 
temperament,  and  partly  because  the  established  type 
of  German  life  and  civilization  offers  very  small  scope 
for  its  development.  When  Miss  Susan  Anthony,  the 
veteran  pioneer  of  woman's  movements  in  the  United 
States,  was  presented  to  the  German  Empress  she  ex- 
pressed a  hope  that  the  Emperor  would  soon  confer 
the  suffrage  on  German  women  ;  it  is  recorded  that  the 
Empress  smiled,  and  probably  most  German  women 
smiled  with  her.  At  the  present  time,  however,  there  is 
an  extraordinary  amount  of  intellectual  activity  in 
Germany,  a  widespread  and  massive  activity.     For  the 


ii2        THE   TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

first  time,  moreover,  it  has  reached  women,  who  are 
taking  it  up  with  characteristic  Teutonic  thoroughness. 
But  they  are  not  imitating  the  methods  of  their  Anglo- 
Saxon  sisters  ;  they  are  going  to  work  their  own  way. 
They  are  spending  very  little  energy  in  waving  the  red 
flag  before  the  fortresses  of  male  monopoly.  They  are 
following  an  emotional  influence  which,  strangely  enough, 
it  may  seem  to  some,  finds  more  support  from  the  bio- 
logical and  medical  side  than  the  Anglo-Saxon  movement 
has  always  been  able  to  win.  From  the  time  of  Aristo- 
phanes downwards,  whenever  they  have  demonstrated 
before  the  masculine  citadels,  women  have  always  been 
roughly  bidden  to  go  home.  And  now,  here  in  Germany, 
where  of  all  countries  that  advice  has  been  most  freely 
and  persistently  given,  women  are  adopting  new  tactics  : 
they  have  gone  home.  "  Yes,  it  is  true,"  they  say  in 
effect,  "  the  home  is  our  sphere.  Love  and  marriage,  the 
bearing  and  the  training  of  children — that  is  our  world. 
And  we  intend  to  lay  down  the  laws  of  our  world." 


IV 

THE  EMANCIPATION  OF  WOMEN  IN  RELATION 
TO  ROMANTIC  LOVE 

The  Absence  of  Romantic  Love  in  Classic  Civilization — Marriage  as 
a  Duty — The  Rise  of  Romantic  Love  in  the  Roman  Empire — The 
Influence  of  Christianity — The  Attitude  of  Chivalry — The  Trou- 
badours— The  Courts  of  Love— The  Influence  of  the  Renaissance — 
Conventional  Chivalry  and  Modern  Civilization — The  Woman 
Movement — The  Modern  Woman's  Equality  of  Rights  and  Re- 
sponsibilities excludes  Chivalry — New  Forms  of  Romantic  Love 
still  remain  possible — Love  as  the  Inspiration  of  Social  Hygiene. 

WHAT  will  be  the  ultimate  effect  of  the  woman's 
movement,  now  slowly  but  surely  taking 
place  among  us,  upon  romantic  love  ? 
That  is  really  a  serious  question,  and  it  is  much  more 
complex  than  many  of  those  who  are  prepared  to  answer 
it  off-hand  may  be  willing  to  admit. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  romantic  love  has  not 
been  a  constant  accompaniment  of  human  relationships, 
even  in  civilization.  It  is  true  that  various  peoples 
very  low  down  in  the  scale  possess  romantic  love-songs, 
often,  it  appears,  written  by  the  women.  But  the  classic 
civilizations  of  Greece  and  Rome  in  their  most  robust 
and  brilliant  periods  knew  little  or  nothing  of  romantic 
love  in  connection  with  normal  sexual  relationships 
culminating  in  marriage.  Classic  antiquity  reveals 
i  113 


ii4       THE   TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

a  high  degree  of  conjugal  devotion,  and  of  domestic 
affection,  at  all  events  in  Rome,  but  the  right  of  the 
woman  to  follow  the  inspirations  of  her  own  heart, 
and  the  idealization  and  worship  of  the  woman  by  the 
man,  were  not  only  scarcely  known  but,  so  far  as  they 
were  known,  reprehended  or  condemned.  Ovid,  in 
the  opinion  of  some,  represents  a  new  movement  in 
Rome.  We  are  apt  to  regard  Ovid  as,  in  erotic  matters, 
the  representative  of  a  set  of  immoral  Roman  volup- 
tuaries. That  view  probably  requires  considerable 
modification.  Ovid  was  not  indeed  a  champion  of 
morality,  but  there  is  no  good  reason  to  suppose  that, 
before  he  appeared,  the  rather  stern  Roman  mind  had 
yet  conceived  those  refinements  and  courtesies  which 
he  set  forth  in  such  charming  detail.  If  we  take  a  wide 
survey  of  his  work,  we  may  perhaps  regard  Ovid  as  the 
pioneer  of  a  chivalrous  attitude  towards  women  and  of 
a  romantic  conception  of  love  not  only  new  in  Rome 
but  of  significance  for  Europe  generally.  Ovid  was 
a  powerful  factor  in  the  Renaissance  movement,  and 
not  least  in  England,  where  his  influence  on  Shakespeare 
and  some  others  of  the  Elizabethans  cannot  easily  be 
overrated.1 

For  the  ordinary  classic  mind,  Greek  or  Roman, 
marriage  was  intended  for  the  end  of  building  up  the 
family,  and  the  family  was  consecrated  to  the  State. 
The  fulfilment  of  so  exalted  a  function  involved  a  certain 
austere    dignity    which    excluded    wayward    inclination 

1  See  especially  Sidney  Lee,  "  Ovid  and  Shakespeare's  Sonnets," 
Quarterly  Review,  April,  1909. 


THE    EMANCIPATION    OF    WOMEN        115 

or  passionate  emotion.  These  might  indeed  occur 
between  a  man  and  a  woman  outside  marriage,  but 
putting  aside  the  very  limited  phenomena  of  Athenian 
hetairism,  they  were  too  shameful  to  be  idealized. 
Some  trace  of  this  classic  attitude  may  be  said  to  persist 
even  to-day  among  the  so-called  Latin  nations,  notably 
in  the  French  tradition  (now  dying  out)  of  treating 
marriage  as  a  relationship  to  be  arranged,  not  by  the 
two  parties  themselves,  but  by  their  parents  and 
guardians;  Montaigne,  attached  as  he  was  to  maxims 
of  Roman  antiquity,  was  not  very  alien  from  the  ordinary 
French  attitude  of  his  time  when  he  declared  that, 
since  we  do  not  marry  so  much  for  our  own  sakes  as  for 
the  sake  of  posterity  and  the  race,  marriage  is  too  sacred 
a  process  to  be  mixed  with  amorous  extravagance.1 
There  is  something  to  be  said  for  that  point  of  view 
which  is  nowadays  too  often  forgotten,  but  it  certainly 
fails  to  cover  the  whole  of  the  ground. 

It  is  not  only  in  the  West  that  a  contemptuous  attitude 
towards  the  romantic  and  erotic  side  of  life  has  prevailed 
at  some  of  the  most  vigorous  moments  of  civilization. 
It  is  also  found  in  the  East.  In  Japan,  for  instance, 
even  at  the  present  day,  romantic  love,  as  a  reputable 
element  of  ordinary  life,  is  unknown  or  disapproved  ; 
its  existence  is  not  recognized  in  the  schools,  and  the 
European  novels  that  celebrate  it  are  scarcely  under- 
stood. 2 

The  development  of  modern  romantic  love   in  con- 

1  Montaigne,  Essais,  Book  III,  chap.  v. 

a  See  e.g.  Mrs.  Fraser,   World's  Work  and  Play,  December,  1906. 


n6        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

nection  with  marriage  seems  to  be  found  in  the  late 
Greek  world  under  the  Roman  Empire.1  That  is  com- 
monly called  a  period  of  decadence.  In  a  certain  limited 
sense  it  was.  Greece  had  become  subjugated  to  Rome. 
Rome  herself  had  lost  her  military  spirit  and  was  losing 
her  political  power.  But  the  fighting  instinct,  and  even 
the  ruling  spirit,  are  not  synonymous  with  civilization. 
The  "  decline  and  fall  "  of  empires  by  no  means  neces- 
sarily involves  the  decay  of  civilization.  It  is  now  gener- 
ally realized  that  the  later  Roman  Empire  was  not, 
as  was  once  thought,  an  age  of  social  and  moral  de- 
generation.2 The  State  indeed  was  dissolving,  but  the 
individual  was  evolving.  The  age  which  produced 
a  Plutarch — for  fifteen  hundred  years  one  of  the  great 

1  A  more  modern  feeling  for  love  and  marriage  begins  to  emerge, 
however,  at  a  much  earlier  period,  with  Menander  and  the  New  Comedy. 
E.  F.  M.  Benecke,  in  his  interesting  little  book  on  Antimachus  of 
Colophon  and  the  Position  of  Women  in  Greek  Poetry,  believes  that  the 
romantic  idea  (that  is  to  say,  the  idea  that  a  woman  is  a  worthy  object 
for  a  man's  love,  and  that  such  love  may  well  be  the  chief,  if  not  the 
only,  aim  of  a  man's  life)  had  originally  been  propounded  by  Anti- 
machus at  the  end  of  the  fifth  century  b.c.  Antimachus,  said  to  have 
been  the  friend  of  Plato,  had  been  united  to  a  woman  of  Lydia  (where 
women,  we  know,  occupied  a  very  high  position)  and  her  death  inspired 
him  to  write  a  long  poem,  Lyde,  "  the  first  love  poem  ever  addressed 
by  a  Greek  to  his  wife  after  death."  Only  a  few  lines  of  this  poem 
survive.  But  Antimachus  seems  to  have  greatly  influenced  Philetas 
(whom  Croiset  calls  "  the  first  of  the  Alexandrians  ")  and  Asclepiades 
of  Samos,  tender  and  exquisite  poets  whom  also  we  only  know  by  a  few 
fragments.  Benecke's  arguments,  therefore,  however  probable,  cannot 
be  satisfactorily  substantiated. 

3  As  I  have  elsewhere  pointed  out  (Studies  in  the  Psychology  of  Sex, 
Vol.  VI,  "  Sex  in  Relation  to  Society,"  chap,  ix),  most  modern 
authorities — Friedlander,  Dill,  Donaldson,  etc. — consider  that  there  was 
no  real  moral  decline  in  the  later  Roman  Empire  ;  we  must  not  accept 
the  pictures  presented  by  satirists,  pagan  or  Christian,  as  of  general 
application. 


THE    EMANCIPATION    OF    WOMEN         117 

inspiring  forces  of  the  world — was  the  reverse  of  a  corrupt 
age.  The  life  of  the  home  and  the  life  of  the  soul  were 
alike  developing.  The  home  was  becoming  more  complex, 
more  intimate,  more  elevated.  The  soul  was  being  turned 
in  on  itself  to  discover  new  and  joyous  secrets  :  the  secret 
of  the  love  of  Nature,  the  secret  of  mystic  religion,  and, 
not  least,  the  secret  of  romantic  love.  When  Christianity 
finally  conquered  the  Roman  world  its  task  very  largely 
lay  in  taking  over  and  developing  those  three  secrets 
already  discovered  by  Paganism. 

It  was  inevitable,  however,  that  in  developing  these 
new  forms  of  the  emotional  life,  the  ascetic  bent  of 
Christianity  should  make  itself  felt.  It  was  not  possible 
for  Christianity  to  cast  its  halo  around  the  natural 
sexual  life,  but  it  was  possible  to  refine  and  exalt  that 
life,  to  lift  it  into  a  spiritual  sphere.  Neither  woman 
the  sweetheart  nor  woman  the  mother  were  in  ordinary 
life  glorified  by  the  Church  ;  they  were  only  tolerated. 
But  on  a  higher  than  natural  plane  they  were  surrounded 
by  a  halo  and  raised  to  the  highest  pedestal  of  reverence 
and  even  worship.  The  Virgin  was  exalted,  Bride  and 
Bridegroom  became  terms  of  mystical  import,  and  the 
Holy  Mother  received  the  adoring  love  of  all  Christendom. 
Even  in  the  actual  relations  of  men  and  women,  quite 
early  in  the  history  of  Christianity,  we  sometimes  find 
men  and  women  cultivating  relationships  which  excluded 
that  earthly  union  the  Church  looked  down  on,  but  yet 
involved  the  most  tender  and  intimate  physical  affection. 
Many  charming  stories  of  such  relationships  are  found 
in  the  lives  of  the  saints,  and  sometimes  they  existed 


n8        THE   TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

even  within  the  marriage  bond.1  Christianity  led  to 
the  use  of  ideas  and  terms  borrowed  from  earthly  love 
in  a  different  and  symbolic  sense.  But  the  undesigned 
result  was  that  a  new  force  and  beauty  were  added 
to  those  ideas  and  terms,  however  applied,  and  also 
that  many  emotions  were  thus  cultivated  which  became 
capable  of  re-inforcing  earthly  human  love.  In  this  way 
it  happened  that,  though  Christianity  rejected  the  ideal 
of  romantic  love  in  its  natural  associations,  it  indirectly 
prepared  the  way  for  a  loftier  and  deeper  realization  of 
that  love. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  emotional  training 
and  refining  of  the  fleshly  instincts  by  Christianity 
was  the  chief  cause  of  the  rise  of  that  conception  of 
romantic  love  which  we  associate  with  the  institution 
of  chivalry.  Exalted  and  sanctified  by  contact  with 
the  central  dogmas  of  religion,  the  emotion  of  love  was 
brought  down  from  this  spiritual  atmosphere  by  the 
knightly  lover,  with  something  of  its  ethereal  halo 
still  clinging  to  it,  and  directed  towards  an  earthly 
mistress.  The  most  extravagant  phase  of  romantic 
love  which  has  ever  been  seen  was  then  brought  about, 
and  in  many  cases,  certainly,  it  was  a  real  erotomania 
which   passed  beyond   the   bounds   of  sanity.2     In   its 

1 1  have  discussed  this  phase  of  early  Christianity  in  the  sixth  volume 
of  Studies  in  the  Psychology  of  Sex,  "  Sex  in  Relation  to  Society," 
chap.  v. 

2  Ulrich  von  Lichtenstein,  in  the  thirteenth  century,  is  the  typical 
example  of  this  chivalrous  erotomania.  His  account  of  his  own  adven- 
tures has  been  questioned,  but  Reinhold  Becker  (Wahrheit  und  Dichtung 
in  Ulyich  von  Lichtenstein' s  Frauendienst,  1888)  considers  that,  though 
much  exaggerated,  it  is  in  substance  true. 


THE    EMANCIPATION    OF    WOMEN        119 

extreme  forms,  however,  this  romantic  love  was  a  rare, 
localized,  and  short-lived  manifestation.  The  dominant 
attitude  of  the  chivalrous  age  towards  women,  as  Leon 
Gautier  has  shown  in  his  monumental  work  on  chivalry, 
was  one  of  indifference,  or  even  contempt.  The  knight's 
thoughts  were  more  of  war  than  of  women,  and  he 
cherished  his  horse  more  than  his  mistress.1 

But  women,  above  all  in  France,  reacted  against 
this  attitude,  and  with  splendid  success.  Their  husbands 
treated  them  with  indifference  or  left  them  at  home 
while  they  sought  adventure  in  the  world.  The  neglected 
wives  proceeded  to  lay  down  the  laws  of  society,  and 
took  upon  themselves  the  part  of  rulers  in  the  domain  of 
morals.  In  the  eleventh,  the  twelfth,  the  thirteenth 
centuries,  says  Meray  in  a  charming  book  on  life  in  the 
days  of  the  Courts  of  Love,  we  find  women  "  with  infinite 
skill  and  an  adorable  refinement  seizing  the  moral  direc- 
tion of  French  society."  They  did  so,  he  remarks,  in  a 
spirit  so  Utopian,  so  ideally  poetic,  that  historians  have 
hesitated  to  take  them  seriously.  The  laws  of  the  Courts 
of  Love2  may  sometimes  seem  to  us  immoral  and  licentious, 
but  in  reality  they  served  to  restrain  the  worst  immoralities 
and  licences  of  the  time.  They  banished  violence,  they 
allowed  no  venality,  and  they  inculcated  moderation 
in  passion.  The  task  of  the  Courts  of  Love  was  facilitated 
by  the  relative   degree   of   peace  which   then  reigned, 

1  Leon  Gautier,  La  Chevalerie,  pp.  236-8,  348-50. 

2  The  chief  source  of  information  on  these  Courts  is  Andre  le 
Chapelain's  De  Arte  Amatoria.  Boccaccio  made  use  of  this  work, 
though  without  mentioning  the  author's  name,  in  his  own  Dialogo 
d'  Amove. 


120        THE   TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

especially  by  the  fact  that  the  Normans,  holding  both 
coasts  of  the  Channel,  formed  a  link  between  France 
and  England.  When  the  murderous  activities  of  French 
kings  and  English  kings  destroyed  that  link,  the  Courts 
of  Love  were  swept  away  in  the  general  disorder  and 
the  progress  of  civilization  indefinitely  retarded.1  Yet 
in  some  degree  the  ideals  which  had  been  thus  embodied 
still  persisted.  As  the  Goncourts  pointed  out  in  their 
invaluable  book,  La  Femme  au  Dix-huitieme  Steele  (Chap, 
v),  from  the  days  of  chivalry  even  on  into  the  eighteenth 
century,  when  on  the  surface  at  all  events  it  apparently 
disappeared,  an  exalted  ideal  of  love  continued  to  be 
cherished  in  France.  This  conception  remained  associated, 
throughout,  with  the  great  social  influence  and  authority 
which  had  been  enjoyed  by  women  in  France  even  from 
medieval  times.  That  influence  had  become  pronounced 
during  the  seventeenth  century,  and  at  that  time  Sir 
Thomas  Smith  in  his  Commonwealth  of  England,  writing 
of  the  high  position  of  women  in  England,  remarked  that 
they  possessed  "  almost  as  much  liberty  as  in  France." 
There  were  at  least  two  forms  of  medieval  romantic 
love.  The  first  arose  in  Provence  and  northern  Italy 
during  the  twelfth  century,  and  spread  to  Germany 
as  Minnedienst.  In  this  form  the  young  knights  directed 
their  respectful  and  adoring  devotion  to  a  high-born 
married  woman  who  chose  one  of  them  as  her  own  cavalier, 
to  do  her  service  and  reverence,  the  two  vowing  devotion 
to  each  other  until  death.  It  was  a  part  of  this  amorous 
code  that  there  could  not  be  love  between  husband  and 

1  A.  Meray,  La  Vie  au  Temps  des  Corns  d' Amour,  1876. 


THE    EMANCIPATION    OF    WOMEN        121 

wife,  and  it  was  counted  a  mark  of  low  breeding  for  a 
husband  to  challenge  his  wife's  right  to  her  young  knight's 
services,  though  sometimes  we  are  told  the  husband 
risked  this  reproach,  occasionally  with  tragic  results. 
This  mode  of  love,  after  being  eloquently  sung  and 
practised  by  the  troubadours — usually,  it  appears, 
younger  sons  of  noble  houses — died  out  in  the  place  of 
its  origin,  but  it  had  been  introduced  into  Spain,  and 
the  Spaniards  reintroduced  it  into  Italy  when  they 
acquired  the  kingdom  of  Naples  ;  in  Italy  it  was  con- 
ventionalized into  the  firmly  rooted  institution  of  the 
cavaliere  servente.  From  the  standpoint  of  a  strict 
morality,  the  institution  was  obviously  open  to  question. 
But  we  can  scarcely  fail  to  see  that  at  its  origin  it  possessed, 
even  if  unconsciously,  a  quasi-religious  warrant  in  the 
worship  of  the  Holy  Mother,  and  we  have  to  recognize 
that,  notwithstanding  its  questionable  shape,  it  was 
really  an  effort  to  attain  a  purer  and  more  ideal  relation- 
ship than  was  possible  in  a  rough  and  warlike  age  which 
placed  the  wife  in  subordination  to  her  husband.  A 
tender  devotion  that  inspired  poetry,  an  unalloyed 
respect  that  approached  reverence,  vows  that  were 
based  on  equal  freedom  and  independence  on  both  sides — 
these  were  possibilities  which  the  men  and  women  of 
that  age  felt  to  be  incompatible  with  marriage  as  they 
knew  it. 

The  second  form  of  medieval  romantic  love  was 
more  ethereal  than  the  first,  and  much  more  definitely 
and  consciously  based  on  a  religious  attitude.  It  was 
really  the  worship  of  the  Virgin  transferred  to  a  young 


122        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

earthly  maiden,  yet  retaining  the  purity  and  ideality 
of  religious  worship.  To  so  high  a  degree  is  this  the  case 
that  it  is  sometimes  difficult  to  be  sure  whether  we  are 
concerned  with  a  real  maiden  of  flesh  and  blood  or  only 
a  poetic  symbol  of  womanhood.  This  doubt  has  been 
raised,  notably  by  Bartoli,  concerning  Dante's  Beatrice, 
the  supreme  type  of  this  ethereal  love,  which  arose 
in  the  thirteenth  century,  and  was  chiefly  cultivated 
in  Florence.  The  poets  of  this  movement  were  them- 
selves aware  of  the  religious  character  of  their  devotion 
to  the  donna  angelicata  to  whom  they  even  apply,  as  they 
would  to  the  Queen  of  Heaven,  the  appellation  Stella 
Maris.  That  there  was  an  element  of  flesh  and  blood 
in  these  figures  is  believed  by  Remy  de  Gourmont, 
but  when  we  gaze  "at  them,  he  remarks,  we  see  at  first, 
"  in  place  of  a  body  only  two  eyes  with  angel's  wings 
behind  them,  on  the  background  of  an  azure  sky  sown 
with  golden  stars  "  ;  the  lover  is  on  his  knees  and  his 
love  has  become  a  prayer.1  This  phase  of  romantic 
love  was  brief,  and  perhaps  mostly  the  possession  of  the 
poets,  but  it  represented  a  really  important  moment 
in  the  evolution  of  modern  romantic  love.  It  was  a  step 
towards  the  realization  of  the  genuinely  human  charm 
of  young  womanhood  in  real  human  relationships,  of 
which  we  already  have  a  foretaste  in  the  delicious  early 
French  story  of  Aucassin  and  Nicolette. 

The  re-discovery  of  classic  literature,  the  movements 
of  Humanism  and  the  Renaissance,  swept  away  what 

1  Remy  de  Gourmont,  Dante,  Beatrice  et  la  Poesie  Amoureuse,  1907, 
P-32- 


THE    EMANCIPATION    OF    WOMEN        123 

was  left  of  the  almost  religious  idealization  of  the  young 
virgin.  The  ethereal  maiden,  thin,  pale,  anaemic, 
disappeared  alike  from  literature  and  from  art,  and  was 
no  longer  an  ideal  in  actual  life.  She  gave  place  to  a 
new  woman,  conscious  of  her  own  fully  developed  woman- 
hood and  all  its  needs,  radiantly  beautiful  and  finely 
shaped  in  every  limb.  She  lacked  the  spirituality  of  her 
predecessors,  but  she  had  gained  in  intellect.  She 
appears  first  in  the  pages  of  Boccaccio.  After  a  long 
interval  Titian  immortalized  her  rich  and  mature  beauty  ; 
she  is  Flora,  she  is  Ariadne,  she  is  alike  the  Earthly 
Love  and  the  Heavenly  Love.  Every  curve  of  her  body 
was  adoringly  and  minutely  described  by  Niphus  and 
Firenzuola.1  She  was,  moreover,  the  courtesan  whose 
imperial  charm  and  adroitness  enabled  her  to  trample 
under  foot  the  medieval  conception  of  lust  as  sin, 
even  in  the  courts  of  popes.  At  the  great  academic 
centre  of  Bologna,  finally,  she  chastely  taught  learning 
and  science.2  The  people  of  the  Italian  Renaissance 
placed  women  on  the  same  level  as  men,  and  to  call 
a  woman  a  virago  implied  unalloyed  praise.3 

1  Niphus  (born  about  1473),  a  physician  and  philosopher  of  the  Papal 
Court,  wrote  in  his  De  Pulchro,  sometimes  considered  the  first  modern 
treatise  on  aesthetics,  a  minute  description  of  Joan  of  Aragon,  whose 
portrait,  traditionally  ascribed  to  Raphael,  is  in  the  Louvre.  The 
famous  work  of  Firenzuola  (born  1493)  entitled  Dialogo  delle  Bellezze 
delle  Donne,  was  published  in  1548.  It  has  been  translated  into  English 
by  Clara  Bell  under  the  title  On  the  Beauty  of  Women. 

2  See,  for  example,  Edith  Coulson  James,  Bologna  :  Its  History, 
Antiquities  and  Art,  191 1. 

3  See,  for  an  interesting  account  of  the  position  of  women  in  the 
Italian  Renaissance,  Burckhardt,  Die  Kultur  dev  Renaissance,  Part  V, 
ch.  vi. 


124        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

The  very  mixed  conditions  of  what  we  have  been 
accustomed  to  consider  the  modern  world  then  began 
for  women.  They  were  no  longer  cloistered — whether 
in  convents  or  the  home — but  neither  were  they 
any  longer  worshipped.  They  began  to  be  treated 
as  human  beings,  and  when  men  idealized  them  in  figures 
of  romantic  charm  or  pathos — figures  like  Shakespeare's 
Rosalind  or  Marivaux's  Sylvia  or  Richardson's  Clarissa 
— this  humanity  was  henceforth  the  common  ground 
out  of  which  the  vision  arose.  But,  one  notes,  in  nearly 
all  the  great  poets  and  novelists  up  to  the  middle  of 
the  last  century,  it  was  usually  in  the  weakness  of 
humanity  that  the  artist  sought  the  charm  and  pathos 
of  his  feminine  figures.  From  Shakespeare's  Ophelia 
to  Thackeray's  Amelia  this  is  the  rule,  more  emphatically 
expressed  in  the  literature  of  England  than  of  any 
other  country.  There  had  been  no  actual  emancipation 
of  women  ;  though  now  they  had  entered  the  world  of 
men,  they  were  not  yet,  socially  and  legally,  of  that 
world.  Even  the  medieval  traditions  still  lived  on 
in  subtly  conventionalized  forms.  The  "  chivalrous  " 
attitude  towards  women  was,  as  the  word  itself  suggests, 
a  medieval  survival.  It  belonged  to  a  period  of  barbarism 
when  brutal  force  ruled  and  when  the  man  who  mag- 
nanimously placed  his  force  at  the  disposition  of  a  woman 
was  really  doing  her  a  service  and  granting  her  a  privilege. 
But  civilization  means  the  building  up  of  an  orderly 
society  in  which  individual  rights  are  respected,  and 
force  no  longer  dominates.  So  that  as  civilization 
advances  the  occasions  on  which  women  require  the  aid 


THE    EMANCIPATION    OF    WOMEN        125 

of  masculine  force  become  ever  fewer  and  more  unim- 
portant. The  conventionalized  chivalry  of  men  then 
tends  to  become  an  offer  of  services  which  it  would  be 
better  for  women  to  do  for  themselves  and  a  bestowal 
of  privileges  to  which  they  are  nowise  entitled.1  More- 
over, this  same  chivalry  is,  under  these  conditions, 
apt  to  take  on  a  character  which  is  the  reverse  of  its 
face  value.  It  becomes  the  assertion  of  a  power  over 
women  instead  of  a  power  on  their  behalf ;  and  it  carries 
with  it  a  tinge  of  contempt  in  place  of  respect.  Theo- 
retically, a  thousand  chivalrous  swords  should  leap 
from  their  scabbards  to  succour  the  distressed  woman. 
In  practice  this  may  only  mean  that  the  thousand 
owners  of  these  metaphorical  weapons  are  on  the  alert 
to  take  advantage  of  the  distressed  woman. 

Thus  the  romantic  emotions  based  on  medieval 
ideals  gradually  lost  their  worth.  They  were  not  in 
relation  to  the  altered  facts  of  life  ;  they  had  become 
an  empty  convention  which  could  be  turned  to  very 
unromantic  uses.     The  movement  for  the  emancipation 

1  I  may  quote  the  following  remarks  from  a  communication  I  have 
received  from  a  University  man  :  "lam  prepared  to  show  women, 
and  to  expect  from  them,  precisely  the  same  amount  of  consideration  as 
I  show  to  or  expect  from  other  men,  but  I  rather  resent  being  expected 
to  make  a  preferential  difference.  For  example,  in  a  crowded  tram  I  see 
no  more  adequate  reason  for  giving  up  my  seat  to  a  young  and  healthy 
girl  than  for  expecting  her  to  give  up  hers  to  me  ;  I  would  do  so  cheer- 
fully for  an  old  person  of  either  sex  on  the  ground  that  I  am  probably 
better  fit  to  stand  the  fatigue  of  '  strap-hanging,'  and  because  I  recognize 
that  some  respect  is  due  to  age  ;  but  if  persons  get  into  over-full 
vehicles  they  should  not  expect  first-comers  to  turn  out  of  their  seats 
merely  because  they  happen  to  be  men."  This  writer  acknowledges, 
indeed,  that  he  is  not  very  sensitive  to  the  erotic  attraction  of  women, 
but  it  is  probable  that  the  changing  status  of  women  will  render  the 
attitude  he  expresses  more  and  more  common  among  men. 


126        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

of  women  was  not  consciously  or  directly  a  movement 
of  revolt  against  an  antiquated  chivalry.  It  was  rather 
a  part  of  the  development  of  civilization  which  rendered 
chivalry  antique.  Medieval  romantic  love  implied  in 
women  a  weakness  in  the  soil  of  which  only  a  spiritual 
force  could  flourish.  The  betterment  of  social  conditions, 
the  subordination  of  violence  to  order,  the  growing 
respect  for  individual  rights,  took  away  the  reasons  for 
consecrating  weakness  in  women,  and  created  an  ever 
larger  field  in  which  women  could  freely  seek  to  rival 
men,  because  it  is  a  field  in  which  knowledge  and  skill 
are  of  far  more  importance  than  muscular  strength. 
The  emancipation  of  women  has  simply  been  the  later 
and  more  conscious  phase  of  the  process  by  which  women 
have  entered  into  this  field  and  sought  their  share  of  its 
rights  and  its  responsibilities. 

The  woman  movement  of  modern  times,  properly 
understood,  has  thus  been  the  effort  of  women  to  adapt 
themselves  to  the  conditions  of  an  orderly  and  peaceful 
civilization.  Education,  under  the  changed  conditions, 
can  effect  what  before  needed  force  of  arms  ;  responsi- 
bility is  now  demanded  where  before  only  tutelage 
was  possible.  A  civilized  society  in  which  women  are 
ignorant  and  irresponsible  is  an  anachronism,  and, 
however  great  the  wrench  with  the  past  might  be, 
it  was  necessary  that  women  should  be  adjusted  to  the 
changing  times.  The  ideal  of  the  weak,  ignorant,  in- 
experienced woman — the  cross  between  an  angel  and 
an  idiot,  as  I  have  elsewhere  described  her1 — no  longer 

1  Ante,  p.  58. 


THE    EMANCIPATION    OF    WOMEN        127 

fulfilled  any  useful  purpose.  Civilized  society  furnishes 
the  conditions  under  which  all  adult  persons  are  socially 
equal  and  all  are  free  to  give  to  society  the  best  they  are 
capable  of. 

It  was  inevitable,  but  unfortunate,  that  this  movement 
should  have  sometimes  tended  to  take  the  form  of  an 
attempt  on  the  part  of  women  to  secure,  not  merely 
equality  with  men,  but  actual  imitation  of  men.  These 
women  said  that  since  men  had  attained  mastery  in  life, 
captured  all  the  best  things,  and  adopted  the  most 
successful  methods  of  living,  it  was  necessary  for  women 
to  copy  them  at  every  point.  That  was  a  specious 
plea  which  even  had  in  it  a  certain  element  of  truth. 
But  the  fact  remained  that  women  and  men  are  different, 
that  the  difference  is  based  in  fundamental  natural 
functions,  and  that  to  place  one  sex  in  exactly  the  same 
position  as  the  other  sex  is  to  deform  its  outlines  and  to 
hamper  its  activities. 

From  the  present  point  of  view  we  are  only  concerned 
with  the  influence  of  the  woman's  movement  on  love. 
On  the  traditional  conception  of  romantic  love  inherited 
from  medieval  days  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  this 
influence  has  been  highly  dissolvent.  Medieval  romantic 
love,  in  its  original  form,  had  been  part  of  a  conception 
of  womanhood  made  up  of  opposites,  and  all  the  opposites 
balanced  each  other.  The  medieval  man  laid  his  homage 
at  the  feet  of  the  great  lady  in  the  castle  hall,  but  he 
himself  lorded  it  over  the  wife  who  drudged  in  his  own 
home.  On  his  knees  he  gazed  up  in  devotion  at  the 
ethereal  virgin,  but  when  she  ceased  to  be  a  virgin,  he 


V 


128        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

asserted  himself  by  cursing  her  as  a  demon  sent  from 
hell  to  seduce  and  torment  him.  All  this  was  possible 
because  the  woman  was  outside  the  orbit  of  the  man's 
life,  never  on  the  same  plane,  necessarily  higher  or 
lower.  It  became  difficult  if  woman  was  man's  equal, 
absurdly  impossible  if  she  was  of  identical  nature  with 
him. 

The  medieval  romantic  tradition  has  come  down  to 
us  so  laden  with  beauty  and  mystery  that  we  are  apt  to 
think,  as  we  see  it  melt  away,  that  human  achievements 
are  being  permanently  depreciated.  That  illusion  occurs 
in  every  age  of  transition.  It  was  notably  so  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  which  represented  a  highly  important 
stage  in  the  emancipation  of  women.  To  some  that 
century  seems  to  have  been  given  up  to  empty  gallantry 
and  facile  pleasure.  Yet  it  was  not  only  the  age  in  which 
women  for  the  first  time  succeeded  in  openly  attaining 
their  supreme  social  influence,1  it  was  an  age  of  romantic 
love,  and  the  noble  or  poignant  love-stories  which  have 
reached  us  from  the  records  of  that  period  surpass  those 
of  any  other  age. 

If  we  believe  with  Goethe  that  the  religion  of  the 
future  consists  in  a  triple  reverence — the  reverence  for 
what  is  above  us,  the  reverence  for  what  is  below  us, 
and  the  reverence  for  our  equals2 — we  need  not  grieve 
overmuch  if  one  form  of  this  reverence,  the  first,  and 
that  which  Goethe  regarded  as  the  earliest  and  crudest, 

1  "Women  then  were  queens,"  as  Taine  writes  {L'Ancien  Regime, 
Vol.  I,  p.  219),  and  he  gives  references  to  illustrate  the  point. 

2  Goethe,  Wilhelm  Meisters  Wanderjahre,  Book  II,  ch.  1. 


THE    EMANCIPATION    OF    WOMEN        129 

has  lost  its  exclusive  claim.  Reverence  is  essential 
to  all  romantic  love.  To  bring  down  the  Madonna  and 
the  Virgin  from  their  pedestals  to  share  with  men  the 
common  responsibilities  and  duties  of  life  is  not  to  divest 
them  of  the  claim  to  reverence.  It  is  merely  the  sign  of 
a  change  in  the  form  of  that  reverence,  a  change  which 
heralds  a  new  romantic  love. 

It  would  be  premature  to  attempt  to  define  the  exact 
outline  of  the  new  forms  of  romantic  love,  or  the  precise 
lineaments  of  the  beings  who  will  most  ardently  evoke 
that  love.  In  literature,  indeed,  the  ideals  of  life  cast 
their  shadow  before,  and  we  may  surely  trace  a  change 
in  the  erotic  ideals  mirrored  in  literature.  The  woman 
whom  Dickens  idealized  in  David  Copperfield  is  unlike 
indeed  to  the  series  of  women  of  a  new  type  introduced 
by  George  Meredith,  and  the  modern  heroine  generally 
exhibits  more  of  the  robust,  open-eyed  and  spontaneous 
qualities  of  that  later  type  than  the  blind  and  clinging 
nature  of  the  amiable  simpletons  of  the  older  type. 
That  the  changed  conditions  of  civilization  should  produce 
new  types  of  womanhood  and  of  love  is  not  surprising, 
if  we  realize  that,  even  within  the  ancient  chivalrous 
forms  it  was  possible  to  produce  similar  robust  types 
when  the  qualities  of  a  race  were  favourable  to  them. 
Spain  furnishes  a  notable  illustration.  Spanish  literature 
from  Cervantes  and  Tirso  to  Valera  and  Blasco  Ibanez 
reflects  a  type  of  woman  who  stands  on  the  same  ground 
as  man  and  is  his  equal  and  often  his  superior  on  that 
ground,  alike  in  vigour  of  body  and  of  spirit,  acquiring 
all  that  she  cares  to  of  virility,  while  losing  nothing  femi- 

K 


130        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

nine  that  is  of  worth.1  In  more  than  one  respect  the 
ideal  woman  of  Spain  is  the  ideal  woman  our  civilization 
now  renders  necessary.  The  women  of  the  future,  Grete 
Meisel-Hess  declares  in  her  femininely  clever  and  frank 
discussion  of  present-day  conditions,  Die  Sexuelle  Krise, 
will  be  full,  strong,  elementary  natures,  devoid  alike 
of  the  impulse  to  destroy  or  the  aptitude  to  be  destroyed. 
She  considers,  moreover,  that  so  far  from  romantic 
love  being  a  thing  of  the  past,  "  love  as  a  form  of  worship 
is  reserved  for  the  future."2  In  the  past  it  has  only  been 
found  among  a  few  rare  souls  ;  in  the  future  world, 
fostered  by  the  finer  selection  of  a  conscious  eugenics, 
and  a  new  reverence  and  care  for  motherhood,  we  may 
reasonably  hope  for  a  truly  efficient  humanity,  the 
bearers  and  conservers  of  the  highest  human  emotions. 
It  is  in  this  sense,  indeed,  that  the  voices  of  the  greatest 
and  most  typical  leaders  of  the  woman's  movement 
of  emancipation  to-day  are  heard.  Ellen  Key,  in  her 
Love  and  Marriage,  seeks  to  conciliate  the  cultivation 
of  a  free  and  sacred  sexual  relationship  with  the  worship 
of  the  child,  as  the  embodiment  of  the  future  race, 
while  Olive  Schreiner  proclaims  in  her  Woman  and  Labour 
that  the  woman  of  the  future  will  walk  side  by  side  with 
man  in  a  higher  and  deeper  relationship  than  has  ever 
been  possible  before  because  it  will  involve  a  new  com- 
munity in  activity  and  insight. 

Nor  is   it   alone   from   the   feminine   side   that   these 


1  Havelock  Ellis,  The  Soul  of  Spain,  chap,  in,  "  The  Women  of 
Spain." 

2  Grete  Meisel-Hess,  Die  Sexuelle  Krise,  1909,  pp.  148,  168. 


THE    EMANCIPATION    OF    WOMEN        131 

forecasts  are  made.  Certainly  for  the  most  part  love 
has  been  cultivated  more  by  women  than  by  men. 
Primacy  in  the  genius  of  intellect  belongs  incontestably 
to  men,  but  in  the  genius  of  love  it  has  doubtless  oftener 
been  achieved  by  women.  They  have  usually  understood 
better  than  men  that  in  this  matter,  as  Goethe  insisted, 
it  is  the  lover  and  not  the  beloved  who  reaps  the  chief 
fruits  of  love.  "It  is  better  to  love,  even  violently," 
wrote  the  forsaken  Portuguese  nun,  in  her  immortal 
Letters,  "  than  merely  to  be  loved."  He  who  loses  his 
life  here  saves  it,  for  it  is  only  in  so  far  as  he  becomes 
a  crucified  god  that  Love  wins  the  sacrifice  of  human 
hearts.  Of  late  years,  by  an  inevitable  reaction,  women 
have  sometimes  forgotten  this  eternal  verity.  The  women 
of  the  twentieth  century  in  their  anxiety  for  self-possession 
and  their  rightful  eagerness  to  gain  positions  they  feel 
they  have  been  too  long  excluded  from,  have  perhaps 
yet  failed  to  realize  that  the  women  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  who  exerted  a  sway  over  life  that  the  women 
of  no  age  before  or  since  have  possessed,  were,  above 
all  women,  great  and  heroic  lovers,  and  that  those  two 
fundamental  facts  cannot  be  cut  asunder.  But  this 
failure,  temporary  as  it  is  doubtless  destined  to  be, 
will  work  for  good  if  it  is  the  point  of  departure  for  a 
revival  among  men  of  the  art  of  love. 

Men  indeed  have  here  fallen  behind  women.  The 
old  saying,  so  tediously  often  quoted,  concerning  love 
as  a  "  thing  apart  "  in  the  lives  of  men  would  scarcely 
have  occurred  to  a  medieval  poet  of  Provence  or  Florence. 
It  is  not  enough  for  women  to  proclaim  a  new  avatar 


132        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

of  love  if  men  are  not  ready  and  eager  to  learn  its  art 
and  to  practise  its  discipline.  In  a  profoundly  suggestive 
fragment  on  love,  left  incomplete  at  his  death  by  the 
distinguished  sociologist  Tarde,1  he  suggests  that  when 
masculine  energy  dies  down  in  the  fields  of  political 
ambition  and  commercial  gain,  as  it  already  has  in  the 
field  of  warfare,  the  energy  liberated  by  greater  social 
organization  and  cohesion  may  find  scope  once  more  in 
love.  For  too  long  a  period  love,  like  war  and  politics 
and  commerce,  has  been  chiefly  monopolized  by  the 
predatory  type  of  man,  in  this  field  symbolized  by  the 
figure  of  Don  Juan.  In  the  future,  Tarde  suggests, 
the  Don  Juan  type  of  lover  may  fall  into  disrepute, 
giving  place  to  the  Virgilian  type,  for  whom  love  is  not 
a  thing  apart  but  a  form  of  life  embodying  its  best 
and  highest  activities. 

When  we  come  upon  utterances  of  this  kind  we  are 
tempted  to  think  that  they  represent  merely  the  poetic 
dreams  of  individuals,  standing  too  far  ahead  of  their 
fellows  to  possess  any  significance  for  men  and  women 
in  general.  But  it  is  probable  that  Ovid,  and  certain 
that  Dante,  set  forth  erotic  conceptions  that  were  un- 
intelligible to  most  of  their  contemporaries,  yet  they  have 
been  immensely  influential  over  the  ideas  and  emotions 
of  men  in  later  ages.  The  poets  and  prophets  of  one 
generation  are  engaged  in  moulding  ideals  which  will 
be  realized  in  the  lives  of  a  subsequent  generation  ; 
in  expressing  their  own  most  intimate  emotions,  as  it 

1  "  La  Morale  Sexuelle,"  Archives  d' Anthropologic  Criminelle,  Janu- 
ary, 1907. 


THE    EMANCIPATION    OF    WOMEN        133 

has  been  truly  said,  they  become  the  leaders  in  a  long 
file  of  men  and  women.  Whatever  may  yet  be  uncertain 
and  undefined,  we  may  assuredly  believe  that  the  emotion 
of  love  is  far  too  deeply  rooted  in  the  depth  of  man's 
organism  and  woman's  organism  ever  to  be  torn  out  or 
ever  to  be  thrust  into  a  subordinate  place.  And  we  may 
also  believe  that  there  is  no  measurable  limit  to  its  power 
of  putting  forth  ever  new  and  miraculous  flowers.  It 
is  recorded  that  once,  in  James  Hinton's  presence,  the 
conversation  turned  on  music,  and  it  was  suggested 
that,  owing  to  the  limited  number  of  musical  combinations 
and  the  unlimited  number  of  musical  compositions, 
a  time  would  come  when  all  music  would  only  be  a 
repetition  of  exhausted  harmonies.  Hinton  remarked 
that  then  would  come  a  man  so  inspired  by  a  new  spirit 
that  his  feeling  would  be,  not  that  all  music  has  been 
written,  but  that  no  music  has  yet  been  written.  It 
was  a  memorable  saying.  In  every  field  that  is  the 
perpetual  proclamation  of  genius :  Behold !  I  create 
all  things  new.  And  in  this  field  of  love  we  can  conceive 
of  no  age  in  which  to  the  inspired  seer  it  will  not  be 
possible  to  feel :  There  has  yet  been  no  love  ! 


V 

THE   SIGNIFICANCE  OF   A    FALLING 
BIRTH-RATE 

The  Fall  of  the  Birth-rate  in  Europe  generally — In  England — In 
Germany — In  the  United  States — In  Canada — In  Australasia — 
"  Crude  "  Birth-rate  and  "  Corrected  "  Birth-rate — The  Connection 
between  High  Birth-rate  and  High  Death-rate — "  Natural  Increase" 
measured  by  Excess  of  Births  over  Deaths — The  Measure  of 
National  Well-being — The  Example  of  Russia — Japan — China — 
The  Necessity  of  viewing  the  Question  from  a  wide  Standpoint — The 
Prevalence  of  Neo-Malthusian  Methods — Influence  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church — Other  Influences  lowering  the  Birth-rate — In- 
fluence of  Postponement  of  Marriage— Relation  of  the  Birth-rate 
to  Commercial  and  Industrial  Activity — Illustrated  by  Russia, 
Hungary,  and  Australia — The  Relation  of  Prosperity  to  Fertility — 
The  Social  Capillarity  Theory — Divergence  of  the  Birth-rate  and 
the  Marriage-rate — Marriage-rate  and  the  Movement  of  Prices — 
Prosperity  and  Civilization — Fertility  among  Savages — The  lesser 
Fertility  of  Urban  Populations — Effect  of  Urbanization  on  Physical 
Development — Why  Prosperity  fails  permanently  to  increase 
Fertility — Prosperity  creates  Restraints  on  Fertility — The  Process 
of  Civilization  involves  Decreased  Fertility — In  this  Respect  it  is 
a  Continuation  of  Zoological  Evolution — Large  Families  as  a  Stigma 
of  Degeneration — The  Decreased  Fertility  of  Civilization  a  General 
Historical  Fact — The  Ideals  of  Civilization  to-day — The  East  and 
the  West. 

I 

ONE  of  the  most  interesting  phenomena  of  the 
early  part  of  the  nineteenth  century  was  the 
immense  expansion  of  the  people  of  the  so-called 
"Anglo-Saxon"  race.1  This  expansion  coincided  with 
that  development  of  industrial  and  commercial  activity 

1  It  must  be  understood  that,  from  the  present  point  of  view,  the 
term  "  Anglo-Saxon  "  covers  the  peoples  of  Wales,  Scotland,  and  Ire- 
land, as  well  as  of  England. 

134 


A    FALLING    BIRTH-RATE  135 

which  made  the  English  people,  who  had  previously  im- 
pressed foreigners  as  somewhat  lazy  and  drunken,  into 
"  a  nation  of  shopkeepers."     It  also  coincided  with  the 
end  of  the  supremacy  of  France  in  Europe  ;   France  had 
succeeded  to  Spain  as  the  leading  power  in  Europe,  and 
had  on  the  whole  maintained  a  supremacy  which  Napo- 
leon brought  to  a  climax,  and,  in  doing  so,  crushed.    The 
growing  prosperity  of  England  represented  an  entirely 
new  wave  of  influence,  mainly  economic  in  character, 
but  not  less  forceful  than  that  of  Spain  and  of  France 
had   been ;     and   this   prosperity   was   reflected   in   the 
growth  of  the  nation.    The  greater  part  of  the  Victorian 
period  was   marked   by   this   expansion  of   population, 
which  reached  its  highest  point  in  the  early  years  of  the 
second  half  of  that  period.     While  the  population  of 
England  was  thus  increasing  with  ever  greater  rapidity 
at  home,  at  the  same  time  the  English-speaking  peoples 
overspread  the  whole  of  North  America,  and  colonized 
the  fertile  fringe  of  Australia.     It  was,  on  a  still  larger 
scale,  a  phenomenon  similar  to  that  which  had  occurred 
three  hundred  years  earlier,   when  Spain  covered  the 
world  and  founded  an  empire  upon  which,  as  Spaniards 
proudly  boasted,  the  sun  never  set. 

When  now,  a  century  later,  we  survey  the  situation, 
not  only  has  industrial  and  commercial  activity  ceased 
to  be  a  special  attribute  of  the  Anglo-Saxons — since  the 
Germans  have  here  shown  themselves  to  possess  qualities 
of  the  highest  order,  and  other  countries  are  rapidly 
rivalling  them — but  within  the  limits  of  the  English- 
speaking  world  itself  the  English  have  found  formidable 


136        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

rivals  in  the  Americans.  Underlying,  however,  even  these 
great  changes  there  is  a  still  more  fundamental  fact  to 
be  considered,  a  fact  which  affects  all  branches  of  the 
race ;  and  that  is,  that  the  Anglo-Saxons  have  passed 
their  great  epoch  of  expansion  and  that  their  birth-rate 
is  rapidly  falling  to  a  normal  level,  that  is  to  say,  to  the 
average  level  of  the  world  in  general.  Disregarding  the 
extremely  important  point  of  the  death-rate  in  its  bear- 
ing on  the  birth-rate,  England  is  seen  to  possess  a  medium 
birth-rate  among  European  countries,  not  among  the 
countries  with  a  high  birth-rate,  like  Russia,  Roumania, 
or  Bulgaria,  nor  among  those  with  a  low  birth-rate,  like 
Sweden,  Belgium,  and  France.  It  was  in  this  last  country 
that  the  movement  of  decline  in  the  European  birth-rate 
began,  and  though  the  rate  of  decline  has  in  France  now 
become  very  gradual  the  long  period  through  which  it 
has  extended  has  placed  France  in  the  lowest  place,  so 
far  as  Europe  is  concerned.  In  1908  out  of  a  total  of 
over  11,000,000  French  families,  in  nearly  2,000,000 
there  were  no  children,  and  in  nearly  3,000,000  there  was 
only  one  child.1  The  general  decline  in  the  European 
birth-rate,  during  the  years  1901-1905,  was  only  slight 
in  Switzerland,  Ireland  and  Spain,  while  it  was  large  not 
only  in  France,  but  in  Italy,  Servia,  England  and  Wales, 
and  especially  in  Hungary  (while,  outside  Europe,  it  was 
largest  of  all  in  South  Australia).  Since  1905  there  has 
been  a  further  general  decline  throughout  Europe,  only 
excepting  Ireland,  Bulgaria,  and  Roumania.    In  Prussia 

1  The  decline  of  the  French  birth-rate  has  been  investigated  in  a 
Lyons  thesis  by  Salvat,  La  Depopulation  de  la  France,  1903. 


A    FALLING    BIRTH-RATE  137 

in  1881-1885  the  birth-rate  was  37-4  ;  in  1909  it  was 
only  31-8  ;  while  in  the  German  Empire  as  a  whole  it 
is  throughout  lower  than  in  Prussia,  though  somewhat 
higher  than  in  England.  In  Austria  and  Spain  alone  of 
European  countries  during  the  twenty  years  between 
1 88 1  and  1901  was  there  any  tendency  for  the  fertility 
of  wives  to  increase.  In  all  other  countries  there  was  a 
decrease,  greatest  in  Belgium,  next  greatest  in  France, 
then  in  England.1 

If  we  consider  the  question,  not  on  the  basis  of  the 
crude  birth-rate,  but  of  the  "  corrected  "  birth-rate,  with 
more  exact  reference  to  the  child-producing  elements  in 
the  population,  as  is  done  by  Newsholme  and  Stevenson,2 
we  find  that  the  greatest  decline  has  taken  place  in  New 
South  Wales,  then  in  Victoria,  Belgium,  and  Saxony, 
followed  by  New  Zealand.  But  France,  the  German 
Empire  generally,  England,  and  Denmark  all  show  a 
considerable  fall ;  while  Sweden  and  Norway  show  a 
fall,  which,  especially  in  Norway,  is  slight.  Norway 
illustrates  the  difference  between  the  "  crude  "  and  the 
"  corrected  "  birth-rate  ;  the  crude  birth-rate  is  lower 
than  that  of  Saxony,  but  the  corrected  birth-rate  is 
higher.  Ireland,  again,  has  a  very  low  crude  birth-rate, 
but  the  population  of  child-bearing  age  has  a  high  birth- 
rate, considerably  higher  than  that  of  England. 

Thus  while  forty  years  ago  it  was  usual  for  both  the 
English  and  the  Germans  to  contemplate,  perhaps  with 

1  The  latest  figures  are  given  in  the  Annual  Reports  of  the  Registrar- 
General  for  England  and  Wales. 

2  Newsholme  and  Stevenson,  "  Decline  of  Human  Fertility  as  shown 
by  corrected  Birth-rates,"  Journal  of  the  Royal  Statistical  Society,  1906. 


138        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

some  complacency,  the  spectacle  of  the  falling  birth-rate 
in  France  as  compared  with  the  high  birth-rate  in  England 
and  Germany,  we  are  now  seen  to  be  all  marching  along 
the  same  road.     In  1876  the  English  birth-rate  reached 
its  maximum  of  36-3  per  thousand  ;   while  in  France  the 
birth-rate  now  appears  almost  to  have  reached  its  lowest 
level.     Germany,  like  England,  now  also  has  a  falling 
birth-rate,  though  it  will  take  some  time  to  sink  to  the 
English  level.     The  birth-rate  for  Germany  generally  is 
still  much  higher  than  for  England  generally,  but  urbani- 
zation in  Germany  seems  to  have  a  greater  influence 
than  in  England  in  lowering  the  birth-rate,  and  for  many 
years  past  the  birth-rate  of  Berlin  has  been  lower  than 
that  of  London.     The  birth-rate  in  Germany  has  long 
been  steadily  falling,  and  the  increase  in  the  population 
of  Germany  is  due  to  a  concomitant  steady  fall  in  the 
death-rate,  a  fall  to  which  there  are  inevitable  natural 
limits.1    Moreover,  as  Flux  has  shown,2  urbanization  is 
going  on  at  a  greater  speed  in  Germany  than  in  England, 
and  practically  the  entire  natural  increase  of  the  German 
population  for  a  quarter  of  a  century  has  drifted  into  the 
towns.     But  the  death-rate  of  the  young  in  German 
towns  is  far  higher  than  in  English  towns,  and  the  first 
five  years  of  life  in  Germany  produce  as  much  mortality 
as  the  first  twenty-five  years  in  England.3     So  that  a 

1  Werner  Sombart,  International  Magazine,  December,  1907. 

2  A.  W.  Flux,  "Urban  Vital  Statistics  in  England  and  Germany," 
Journ.  Statist.  Soc,  March,  1910. 

3  German  infantile  mortality,  Bohmert  states  ("  Die  Sauglingsster- 
blichkeit  in  Deutschland  und  ihre  Ursachen,"  Die  Neue  Generation, 
March,  1908),  is  greater  than  in  any  European  country,  except  Russia  and 
Hungary,  about  50  per  cent  greater  than  in  England,  France,  Belgium, 


A    FALLING    BIRTH-RATE  139 

thousand  children  born  in  England  add  far  more  to  the 
population  than  a  thousand  children  born  in  Germany. 
The  average  number  of  children  per  family  in  German 
towns  is  less  than  in  English  towns  of  the  same  size. 
These  results,  reached  by  Flux,  suggest  that  in  a  few 
years'  time  the  rate  of  increase  in  the  German  population 
will  be  lower  than  it  is  at  present  in  England.    In  England, 
since  1876,  the  decline  has  been  so  rapid  as  to  be  equal 
to   20   per  cent   within  a  generation,   and  in  some  of 
the  large  towns  to  40  per  cent.    Against  this  there  has, 
indeed,  to  be  set  the  general  tendency  during  recent  years 
for  the  death-rate  to  fall  also.     But  this  saving  of  life 
has  until  lately  been  effected  mainly  at  the  higher  ages  ; 
there  has  been  but  little  saving  of  the  lives  of  infants, 
upon  whom  the  death-rate  falls  most  heavily.     Accom- 
panying this  falling  off  in  the  number  of  children  pro- 
duced there  has  often  been,  as  we  might  expect,  a  fall 
in  the  marriage-rate  ;   but  this  has  been  less  regular,  and 
of  late  the  marriage-rate  has  sometimes  been  high  when 
the  birth-rate  was  low.1     There  has,  however,  been  a 

or  Holland.  The  infantile  mortality  has  increased  in  Germany,  as 
usually  happens,  with  the  increased  employment  of  women,  and,  largely 
from  this  cause,  has  nearly  doubled  in  Berlin  in  the  course  of  four  years, 
states  Lily  Braun  [Mutter  schutz,  1906,  Heft  I,  p.  21)  ;  but  even  on 
this  basis  it  is  only  22  per  cent  in  the  English  textile  industries,  as  against 
38  per  cent  in  the  German  textile  industries. 

1  In  England  the  marriage-rate  fell  rather  sharply  in  1875,  and 
showed  a  slight  tendency  to  rise  about  1900  (G.  Udny  Yule,  **  On  the 
Changes  in  the  Marriage-  and  Birth-rates  in  England  and  Wales," 
Journal  of  the  Statistical  Society,  March,  1906).  On  the  whole  there  has 
been  a  real  though  slight  decline.  The  decline  has  been  widespread, 
and  is  most  marked  in  Australia,  especially  South  Australia.  There 
has,  however,  been  a  rise  in  the  marriage- rate  in  Ireland,  France, 
Austria,  Switzerland,  Germany,  and  especially  Belgium.     The  move- 


140        THE   TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

steady  postponement  of  the  average  age  at  which  mar- 
riage takes  place.  On  the  whole,  the  main  fact  that 
emerges  is,  that  nowadays  in  England  we  marry  less  and 
have  fewer  children. 

This  is  now  a  familiar  fact,  and  perhaps  it  should  not 
excite  very  great  surprise.  England  is  an  old  and  fairly 
stable  country,  and  it  may  be  said  that  it  would  be  un- 
reasonable to  expect  its  population  to  retain  indefinitely 
a  high  degree  of  fertility.  Whether  this  is  so  or  not, 
there  is  the  further  consideration  to  be  borne  in  mind 
that,  during  nearly  the  whole  of  the  Victorian  period, 
emigration  of  the  most  vigorous  stocks  took  place  to  a 
very  marked  extent.  It  is  not  difficult  to  see  the  influ- 
ence of  such  emigration  in  connection  with  the  greatly 
diminished  population  of  Ireland,  as  compared  with 
Scotland  ;  and  we  may  reasonably  infer  that  it  has  had 
its  part  in  the  decreased  fertility  of  the  United  Kingdom 
generally. 

But  we  encounter  the  remarkable  fact  that  this  de- 
creased fertility  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  populations  is  not 
confined  to  the  United  Kingdom.  It  is  even  more  pro- 
nounced in  those  very  lands  to  which  so  many  thousand 
shiploads  of  our  best  people  have  been  taken.  In  the 
United  States  the  question  has  attracted  much  attention, 
and  there  is  little  disagreement  among  careful  observers 
as  to  the  main  facts  of  the  situation.    The  question  is, 

ment  for  decreased  child-production  would  naturally  in  the  first  place 
involve  decreased  marriage,  but  it  is  easy  to  understand  that  when  it 
is  realized  the  marriage  is  not  necessarily  followed  by  conception 
this  motive  for  avoiding  marriage  loses  its  force,  and  the  marriage-rate 
rises. 


A    FALLING    BIRTH-RATE  141 

indeed,  somewhat  difficult  for  two  reasons  :  the  regis- 
tration of  births  is  not  generally  compulsory  in  the 
United  States,  and,  even  when  general  facts  are  ascer- 
tained, it  is  still  necessary  to  distinguish  between  the 
different  classes  of  the  population.  Our  conclusions  must 
therefore  be  based,  not  on  the  course  of  a  general  birth- 
rate, but  on  the  most  reliable  calculations,  based  on  the 
census  returns  and  on  the  average  size  of  the  family  at 
different  periods,  and  among  different  classes  of  the 
population.  A  bulletin  of  the  Census  Bureau  of  the 
United  States  since  i860  was  prepared  a  few  years  ago 
by  Walter  F.  Wilcox,  of  Cornell  University.  It  deter- 
mines from  the  data  in  the  census  office  the  proportion 
of  children  to  the  number  of  women  of  child-bearing  age 
in  the  country  at  different  periods,  and  shows  that  there 
has  been,  on  the  whole,  a  fall  from  the  beginning  to  the 
end  of  the  last  century.  Children  under  ten  years  of  age 
constituted  one-third  of  the  population  at  the  beginning 
of  the  century,  and  at  the  end  less  than  one-fourth  of  the 
total  population.  Between  1850  and  i860  the  propor- 
tion of  children  to  women  between  fifteen  and  forty-nine 
years  of  age  increased,  but  since  i860  it  has  constantly 
decreased.  In  i860  the  number  of  children  under  five 
years  of  age  to  one  thousand  women  between  fifteen  and 
forty-nine  years  of  age  was  634  ;  in  1900  it  was  only  474. 
The  proportion  of  children  to  potential  mothers  in  1900 
was  only  three-fourths  as  large  as  in  i860.  In  the  north 
and  west  of  the  United  States  the  decline  has  been 
regular,  while  in  the  south  the  change  has  been  less 
regular  and  the  decline  less  marked.     A  comparison  is 


142        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

made  between  the  proportion  of  children  in  the  foreign- 
born  population  and  in  the  American.  The  former  was 
710  to  the  latter's  462.  In  the  coloured  population  the 
proportion  of  children  is  greater  than  in  the  correspond- 
ing white  population. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  whatever  that,  from  the  eigh- 
teenth century  to  the  twentieth,  there  has  been  a  steady 
decrease  in  the  size  of  the  American  family.  Franklin, 
in  the  eighteenth  century,  estimated  that  the  average 
number  of  children  to  a  married  couple  was  eight  ;  genea- 
logical records  show  that,  while  in  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury it  was  nearly  seven,  it  was  over  six  at  the  end  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  Since  then,  as  Engelmann  and  others 
have  shown,  there  has  been  a  steady  decrease  in  the  size 
of  the  family  ;  in  the  earlier  years  of  the  nineteenth 
century  there  were  between  four  and  five  children  to 
each  marriage,  while  by  the  end  of  the  century  the 
number  of  children  had  fallen  to  between  four  and  but 
little  over  one.  Engelmann  finds  that  there  is  but  a  very 
trifling  difference  in  this  respect  between  the  upper  and 
the  lower  social  classes  ;  the  average  for  the  labouring 
classes  at  St.  Louis  he  finds  to  be  about  two,  and  for  the 
higher  classes  a  little  less.  It  is  among  the  foreign-born 
population,  and  among  those  of  foreign  parents,  that  the 
larger  families  are  found  ;  thus  Kuczynski,  by  analysing 
the  census,  finds  that  in  Massachusetts  the  average 
number  of  children  to  each  married  woman  among  the 
American-born  of  all  social  classes  is  27,  while  among 
the  foreign-born  of  all  social  classes  it  is  4*5.  Moreover, 
sterility  is  much  more  frequent  among  American  women 


A    FALLING    BIRTH-RATE  143 

than  among  foreign  women  in  America.  Among  various 
groups  in  Boston,  St.  Louis,  and  elsewhere  it  varies  be- 
tween 20  and  23  per  cent,  and  in  some  smaller  groups 
is  even  considerably  higher,  while  among  the  foreign- 
born  it  is  only  13  per  cent.  The  net  result  is  that  the 
general  natality  of  the  United  States  at  the  present  day 
is  about  equal  to  that  of  France,  but  that,  when  we 
analyse  the  facts,  the  fertility  of  the  old  native-born 
American  population  of  mainly  Anglo-Saxon  origin  is 
found  to  be  lower  than  that  of  France.  This  element, 
therefore,  is  rapidly  dwindling  away  in  the  United  States. 
The  general  level  of  the  birth-rate  is  maintained  by  the 
foreign  immigrants,  who  in  many  States  (as  in  New  York, 
Massachusetts,  Michigan,  and  Minnesota)  constitute  the 
majority  of  the  population,  and  altogether  number  con- 
siderably over  ten  millions.  Among  these  immigrants 
the  Anglo-Saxon  element  is  now  very  small.  Indeed,  the 
whole  North  European  contingent  among  the  American 
immigrants,  which  was  formerly  nearly  go  per  cent  of  the 
whole,  has  since  1890  steadily  sunk,  and  the  majority 
of  the  immigrants  now  belong  to  the  Central,  Southern, 
and  Eastern  European  stocks.  The  racial,  and,  it  is 
probable,  the  psychological  characteristics  of  the  people 
of  the  United  States  are  thus  beginning  to  undergo,  not 
merely  modification,  but,  it  may  almost  be  said,  a  revo- 
lution. If,  as  we  may  well  believe,  the  influence  of  the 
original  North-European  racial  elements — Anglo-Saxon, 
Dutch,  and  French — still  continues  to  persist  in  the 
United  States,  it  can  only  be  the  influence  of  a  small 
aristocracy,  maintained  by  intellect  and  character. 


144        THE   TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

When  we  turn  to  Canada,  a  land  that  is  imposing,  less 
by  the  actual  size  of  the  population  than  by  the  vast 
tracts  it  possesses  for  its  development,  the  question  has 
not  yet  been  fully  investigated ;  but  such  facts  and  official 
publications  as  I  have  been  able  to  obtain  all  indicate 
that,  in  this  matter,  the  English  Canadians  approximate 
to  the  native  Americans.  In  the  United  States  it  is  the 
European  immigrants  who  maintain  the  general  popula- 
tion at  a  productive  level,  and  thus  indirectly  oust  the 
Anglo-Saxon  element.  In  Canada  the  chief  dividing  line 
is  between  the  Anglo-Saxon  element  and  the  old  French 
element  in  the  population  ;  and  here  it  is  the  French 
Canadians  who  are  gaining  ground  on  the  English  ele- 
ments in  the  population.  Engelmann  ascertained  that 
an  examination  of  one  thousand  families  in  the  records 
of  Quebec  Life  Assurance  companies  shows  9-2  children 
on  the  average  to  the  French  Canadian  child-bearing 
woman.  It  is  found  also  from  the  records  of  the  French 
Canadian  Society  for  Artisans  that  500  families  from 
town  districts,  taken  at  random,  show  9-06  children  per 
family,  and  500  families  from  country  districts  show 
9-33  children  per  family.1  It  must  be  remembered  that 
this  average,  which  is  even  higher  than  that  found  in 
Russia,  the  most  prolific  of  European  countries,  is  not 
quite  the  same  as  the  number  of  children  per  marriage  ; 
but  it  indicates  very  great  fertility,  while  it  may  be 
noted  also  that  sterile  marriages  are  comparatively  rare 
among  French  Canadians,  although  among  English 
Canadians  the  proportion  of  childless  families  is  found 

1  Medicine,  February,  1904. 


A    FALLING    BIRTH-RATE  145 

to  be  almost  exactly  the  same  (nearly  20  per  cent)  as 
among  the  infertile  Americans  of  Massachusetts.  The 
annual  Reports  of  the  Registrar-General  of  Ontario,  a 
province  which  is  predominantly  of  Anglo-Saxon  origin, 
show  that  the  average  birth-rate  during  the  decade  1899- 
1908  has  been  22-3  per  1000  ;  it  must  be  noted,  how- 
ever, that  there  has  been  a  gradual  rise  from  a  rate  of 
19-4  in  1899  to  one  of  25-6  in  1908.  The  report  of  Mr. 
Prevost,  the  recorder  of  vital  statistics  for  the  predomi- 
nantly French  province  of  Quebec,  shows  much  higher 
rates.  The  general  birth-rate  for  the  province  for  the 
year  1901  is  high,  being  35-2,  much  higher  than  that  of 
England,  and  nearly  as  high  as  that  of  Germany.  If, 
however,  we  consider  the  thirty-five  counties  of  the 
province  in  which  the  population  is  almost  exclusively 
French  Canadian,  we  find  that  35  represents  almost  the 
lowest  average  ;  as  many  as  twenty-two  of  these  counties 
show  a  rate  of  over  forty,  and  one  (Yamaska)  reached 
51-52.  It  is  very  evident  that,  in  order  to  pull  down  these 
high  birth-rates  to  the  general  level  of  35-2,  we  have  to 
assume  a  much  lower  birth-rate  among  the  counties  in 
which  the  English  element  is  considerable.  It  must  be 
remembered,  however,  that  infant  mortality  is  high 
among  the  French  Canadians.  The  French  Canadian 
Catholic,  it  has  been  said,  would  shrink  in  horror  from 
such  an  unnatural  crime  as  limiting  his  family  before 
birth,  but  he  sees  nothing  repugnant  to  God  or  man  in 
allowing  the  surplus  excess  of  children  to  die  after  birth. 
In  this  he  is  at  one  with  the  Chinese.  Dr.  E.  P.  La  Cha- 
pelle,  the  President  of  the  Provincial  Conseil  d'Hygiene, 

L 


146        THE   TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

wrote  some  years  ago  to  Professor  Davidson,  in  answer 
to  inquiries  :  "  I  do  not  believe  it  would  be  correct  to 
ascribe  the  phenomenon  to  any  single  cause,  and  I  am 
convinced  it  is  the  result  of  several  factors.  For  one,  the 
first  cause  of  the  heavy  infant  mortality  among  the 
French  Canadians  is  their  very  heavy  natality,  each 
family  being  composed  of  an  average  of  twelve  children, 
and  instances  of  families  of  fifteen,  eighteen,  and  even 
twenty-four  children  being  not  uncommon.  The  super- 
abundance of  children  renders,  I  think,  parents  less 
careful  about  them."1 

The  net  result  is  a  slight  increase  on  the  part  of  the 
French  Canadians,  as  compared  with  the  English  element 
in  the  province,  as  becomes  clear  when  we  compare  the 
proportion  of  the  population  of  English,  Scotch,  Irish, 
and  all  other  nationalities  with  the  total  population  of  the 
province,  now  and  thirty  years  ago.  In  1871  it  was 
21  per  cent ;  in  190 1  it  was  only  19  per  cent.  The  de- 
crease of  the  Anglo-Saxons  may  here  appear  to  be  small, 
though  it  must  be  remembered  that  thirty  years  is  but  a 
short  period  in  the  history  of  a  nation  ;  but  it  is  signifi- 
cant when  we  bear  in  mind  that  the  English  element  has 
here  been  constantly  reinforced  by  immigrants  (who,  as 
the  experience  of  the  United  States  shows,  are  by  no 
means  an  infertile  class),  and  that  such  reinforcement 
cannot  be  expected  to  continue  in  the  future. 

From  Australia  comes  the  same  story  of  the  decline  of 
Anglo-Saxon  fertility.    In  nearly  all  the  Australian  colo- 

1  Davidson,  "  The  Growth  of  the  French-Canadian  Race,"  Annals 
of  the  American  Academy,  September,  1896. 


A    FALLING    BIRTH-RATE  147 

nies  the  highest  birth-rate  was  reached  some  twenty  or 
thirty  years  ago.  Since  then  there  has  been  a  more  or 
less  steady  fall,  accompanied  by  a  marked  decrease  in 
the  number  of  marriages,  and  a  tendency  to  postpone 
the  age  of  marriage.  One  colony,  Western  Australia,  has 
a  birth-rate  which  sometimes  fluctuates  above  that  of 
England  ;  but  it  is  the  youngest  of  the  colonies,  and,  at 
present,  that  with  the  smallest  population,  largely  com- 
posed of  recent  immigrants.  We  may  be  quite  sure  that 
its  comparatively  high  birth-rate  is  merely  a  temporary 
phenomenon.  A  very  notable  fact  about  the  Australian 
birth-rate  is  the  extreme  rapidity  with  which  the  fall  has 
taken  place  ;  thus  Queensland,  in  1890,  had  a  birth-rate 
of  37,  but  by  1899  the  rate  had  steadily  fallen  to  27,  and 
the  Victorian  rate  during  the  same  period  fell  from  33  to 
26  per  thousand.  In  New  South  Wales,  the  state  of  things 
has  been  carefully  studied  by  Mr.  Coghlan,  formerly 
Government  statistician  of  New  South  Wales,  who  comes 
to  the  conclusion  that  the  proportion  of  fertile  marriages 
is  declining,  and  that  (as  in  the  United  States)  it  is 
the  recent  European  immigrants  only  who  show  a  com- 
paratively high  birth-rate.  Until  1880,  Coghlan  states,  the 
Australasian  birth-rate  was  about  38  per  thousand,  and 
the  average  number  of  children  to  the  family  about  5-4. 
In  1901  the  birth-rate  had  already  fallen  to  27-6  and  the 
size  of  the  family  to  3-6  children.1    It  should  be  added 

1  T.  A.  Coghlan,  The  Decline  of  the  Birth-rate  of  New  South  Wales, 
1903.  The  New  South  Wales  statistics  are  specially  valuable  as  the 
records  contain  many  particulars  (such  as  age  of  parents,  period  since 
marriage,  and  number  of  children)  not  given  in  English  or  most  other 
records. 


148        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

that  in  all  the  Australasian  colonies  the  birth-rate 
reached  its  lowest  point  some  years  ago,  and  may  now 
be  regarded  as  in  a  state  of  normal  equipoise  with  a 
slight  tendency  to  rise.  The  case  of  New  Zealand  is 
specially  interesting.  New  Zealand  once  had  the  highest 
birth-rate  of  all  the  Australasian  colonies  ;  it  is  without 
doubt  the  most  advanced  of  all  in  social  and  legislative 
matters  ;  a  variety  of  social  reforms,  which  other  coun- 
tries are  struggling  for,  are,  in  New  Zealand,  firmly 
established.  Its  prosperity  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  it 
has  the  lowest  death-rate  of  any  country  in  the  world, 
only  io-2  per  thousand,  as  against  24  in  Austria  and  22 
in  France  ;  it  cannot  even  be  said  that  the  marriage-rate 
is  very  low,  for  it  is  scarcely  lower  than  that  of  Austria, 
where  the  birth-rate  is  high.  Yet  the  birth-rate  in  New 
Zealand  fell  as  the  social  prosperity  of  the  country  rose, 
reaching  its  lowest  point  in  1899. 

We  thus  find  that  from  the  three  great  Anglo-Saxon 
centres  of  the  world — north,  west,  and  south — the 
same  story  comes.  We  need  not  consider  the  case  of 
South  Africa,  for  it  is  well  recognized  that  there  the 
English  constitute  a  comparatively  infertile  fringe, 
mostly  confined  to  the  towns,  while  the  earlier  Dutch 
element  is  far  more  prolific  and  firmly  rooted  in  the  soil. 
The  position  of  the  Dutch  there  is  much  the  same  as 
that  of  the  French  in  Canada. 

Thus  we  find  that  among  highly  civilized  races 
generally,  and  not  least  among  the  English-speaking 
peoples  who  were  once  regarded  as  peculiarly  prolific, 
a  great  diminution  of   reproductive  activity  has  taken 


A    FALLING    BIRTH-RATE  149 

place  during  the  past  forty  years,  and  is  in  some  countries 
still  taking  place.  But  before  we  proceed  to  consider 
its  significance  it  may  be  well  to  look  a  little  more  closely 
at  our  facts. 

We  have  seen  that  the  "  crude  "  birth-rate  is  not 
an  altogether  reliable  index  of  the  reproductive  energy 
of  a  nation.  Various  circumstances  may  cause  an  excess 
or  a  defect  of  persons  of  reproductive  age  in  a  community, 
and  unless  we  allow  for  these  variations,  we  cannot 
estimate  whether  that  community  is  exercising  its 
reproductive  powers  in  a  fairly  normal  manner.  But 
there  is  another  and  still  more  important  consideration 
always  to  be  borne  in  mind  before  we  can  attach  any 
far-reaching  significance  even  to  the  corrected  birth- 
rate. We  have,  that  is,  to  bear  in  mind  that  a  high  or  a 
low  birth-rate  has  no  meaning,  so  far  as  the  growth  of 
a  nation  is  concerned,  unless  it  is  considered  in  relation 
to  the  death-rate.  The  natural  increase  of  a  nation 
is  not  the  result  of  its  birth-rate,  but  of  its  birth-rate 
minus  its  death-rate.  A  low  birth-rate  with  a  low  death- 
rate  (as  in  Australasia)  produces  a  far  greater  natural 
increase  than  a  low  birth-rate  with  a  rather  high  death- 
rate  (as  in  France),  and  may  even  produce  as  great  an 
increase  as  a  very  high  birth-rate  with  a  very  high  death- 
rate  (as  in  Russia).  Many  worthy  people  might  have 
been  spared  the  utterance  of  foolish  and  mischievous 
jeremiads,  if,  instead  of  being  content  with  a  hasty 
glance  at  the  crude  birth-rate,  they  had  paused  to  con- 
sider this  fairly  obvious  fact. 

There  is  an  intimate  connection  between  a  high  birth- 


150        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

rate  and  a  high  death-rate,  between  a  low  birth-rate 
and  a  low  death-rate.  It  may  not,  indeed,  be  an  abso- 
lutely necessary  connection,  and  is  not  the  outcome  of 
any  mysterious  "  law."  But  it  usually  exists,  and  the 
reasons  are  fairly  obvious.  We  have  already  encountered 
the  statement  from  an  official  Canadian  source  that 
the  large  infantile  mortality  of  French  Canadian  families 
is  due  to  parental  carelessness,  consequent,  no  doubt, 
not  only  on  the  dimly  felt  consciousness  that  children 
are  cheap,  but  much  more  on  inability  to  cope  with  the 
manifold  cares  involved  by  a  large  family.  Among 
the  English  working  class  every  doctor  knows  the 
thinly  veiled  indifference  or  even  repulsion  with  which 
women  view  the  seemingly  endless  stream  of  babies 
they  give  birth  to.  Among  the  Berlin  working  class, 
also,  Hamburger's  important  investigation  has  indicated 
how  serious  a  cause  of  infantile  mortality  this  may  be. 
By  taking  374  working-class  women,  who  had  been 
married  twenty  years  and  conceived  3183  times,  he 
found  that  the  net  result  in  surviving  children  was 
relatively  more  than  twice  as  great  among  the  women 
who  had  only  had  one  child  when  compared  to  the  women 
who  had  had  fifteen  children.  The  women  with  only 
one  child  brought  76-47  per  cent  of  these  children  to 
maturity  ;  the  women  who  had  produced  fifteen  children 
could  only  bring  30-66  of  them  to  maturity  ;  the  inter- 
mediate groups  showed  a  gradual  fall  to  this  low  level, 
the  only  exception  being  that  the  mothers  of  three 
children  were  somewhat  more  successful  than  the  mothers 
of    two    children.      Among    well-to-do    mothers    Ham- 


A    FALLING    BIRTH-RATE  151 

burger  found  no  such  marked  contrast  between  the 
net  product  of  large  families  as  compared  to  small 
families.1 

It  we  look  at  the  matter  from  a  wider  standpoint 
we  can  have  no  difficulty  in  realizing  that  a  community 
which  is  reproducing  itself  rapidly  must  always  be  in 
an  unstable  state  of  disorganization  highly  unfavourable 
to  the  welfare  of  its  members,  and  especially  of  the  new- 
comers ;  a  community  which  is  reproducing  itself  slowly 
is  in  a  stable  and  organized  condition  which  permits 
it  to  undertake  adequately  the  guardianship  of  its  new 
members.  The  high  infantile  mortality  of  the  community 
with  a  high  birth-rate  merely  means  that  that  community 
is  unconsciously  making  a  violent  and  murderous  effort 
to  attain  to  the  more  stable  and  organized  level  of  the 
country  with  a  low  birth-rate. 

The  English  Registrar-General  in  1907  estimated 
the  natural  increase  by  excess  of  births  over  deaths  as 
exceptionally  high  (higher  than  that  of  England)  in 
several  Australian  Colonies,  in  the  Balkan  States,  in 
Russia,  the  Netherlands,  the  German  Empire,  Den- 
mark, and  Norway,  though  in  the  majority  of  these 
lands  the  birth-rate  is  very  low.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  natural  increase  by  excess  of  births  over  deaths 
is  below  the  English  rate  in  Austria,  in  Hungary, 
in  Japan,  in  Italy,  in  Sweden,  Switzerland,  Spain, 
Belgium,  and  Ontario,  though  in  the  majority  of 
these   lands   the   birth-rate   is  high,  and  in  some  very 

1  C.  Hamburger,  "  Kinderzahl  unci  Kindersterblichkeit,"  Die  Neue 
Generation,  August,  1909. 


152        THE   TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

high. 1  In  most  cases  it  is  the  high  death-rate  in  infancy  and 
childhood  which  exercises  the  counterbalancing  influence 
against  a  high  birth-rate ;  the  death-rate  in  adult  life  may 
be  quite  moderate.  And  with  few  exceptions  we  find 
that  a  high  infantile  mortality  accompanies  a  high 
death-rate,  while  a  low  infantile  mortality  accompanies  a 
low  birth-rate.  It  is  evident,  however,  that  even  an 
extremely  high  infantile  mortality  is  no  impediment 
to  a  large  natural  increase  provided  the  birth-rate  is 
extremely  high  to  a  more  than  corresponding  extent. 
But  a  natural  increase  thus  achieved  seems  to  be  ac- 
companied by  far  more  disastrous  social  conditions 
than  when  an  equally  large  increase  is  achieved  by 
a  low  infantile  death-rate  working  in  association  with 
a  low  birth-rate.  Thus  in  Norway  on  one  side  of  the 
world  and  in  Australasia  on  the  opposite  side  we  see 
a  large  natural  increase  effected  not  by  a  profuse  ex- 
penditure of  mostly  wasted  births  but  by  an  economy 
in  deaths,  and  the  increase  thus  effected  is  accompanied 
by  highly  favourable  social  conditions,  and  great  national 
vigour.  Norway  appears  to  have  the  lowest  infantile 
death-rate  in  Europe.2 

1  Looked  at  in  another  way,  it  may  be  said  that  if  a  natural  increase, 
as  ascertained  by  subtracting  the  death-rate  from  the  birth-rate,  of 
10  to  15  per  cent  be  regarded  as  normal,  then,  taking  so  far  as  possible 
the  figures  for  1909,  the  natural  increase  of  England  and  Scotland,  of 
Germany,  of  Italy,  of  Austria  and  Hungary,  of  Belgium,  is  normal  ; 
the  natural  increase  of  New  South  Wales,  of  Victoria,  of  South  Australia, 
of  New  Zealand,  is  abnormally  high  (though  in  new  countries  such 
increase  may  not  be  undesirable)  while  the  natural  increase  of  France, 
of  Spain,  and  of  Ireland  is  abnormally  low.  Such  a  method  of  estima- 
tion, of  course,  entirely  leaves  out  of  account  the  question  of  the  social 
desirability  of  the  process  by  which  the  normal  increase  is  secured. 

2  Johannsen,  Janus,  1905. 


A    FALLING    BIRTH-RATE  153 

Rubin  has  suggested  that  the  fairest  measure  of 
a  country's  well-being,  as  regards  its  actual  vitality — 
without  direct  regard,  of  course,  to  the  country's  economic 
prosperity — is  the  square  of  the  death-rate  divided  by 
the  birth-rate.1  Sir  J.  A.  Baines,  who  accepts  this  test, 
states  that  Argentina  with  its  high  birth-rate  and  low 
death-rate  stands  even  above  Norway,  and  Australia 
still  higher,  while  the  climax  for  the  world  is  attained 
by  New  Zealand,  which  has  attained  "  the  nearest 
approach  to  immortality  yet  on  record."  2  The  order 
of  descending  well-being  in  Europe  is  thus  represented 
(at  the  year  1900)  by  Norway,  Sweden,  Denmark, 
Holland,  England,  Scotland,  Finland,  Belgium,  Switzer- 
land, Germany,  Ireland,  Portugal,  Italy,  Austria,  France, 
and  Spain. 

On  the  other  hand,  in  all  the  countries,  probably 
without  exception,  in  which  a  large  natural  increase 
is  effected  by  the  efforts  of  an  immense  birth-rate  to 
overcome  an  enormous  death-rate  the  end  is  only  effected 
with  much  friction  and  misery,  and  the  process  is  ac- 
companied   by   a    general    retardation    of    civilization. 

1  Rubin,  "  A  Measure  of  Civilization,"  Journal  of  the  Royal  Statistical 
Society,  March,  1897.  "  The  lowest  stage  of  civilization,"  he  points  out, 
"  is  to  go  forward  blindly,  which  in  this  connection  means  to  bring  into 
the  world  a  great  number  of  children  which  must,  in  great  proportion, 
sink  into  the  grave.  The  next  stage  of  civilization  is  to  see  the  danger 
and  to  keep  clear  of  it.  The  highest  stage  of  civilization  is  to  see  the 
danger  and  overcome  it."  Europe  in  the  past  and  various  countries 
in  the  present  illustrate  the  first  stage  ;  France  illustrates  the  second 
stage  ;  the  third  stage  is  that  towards  which  we  are  striving  to  move 
to-day. 

2  Baines,  "  The  Recent  Growth  of  Population  in  Western  Europe," 
Journal  of  the  Royal  Statistical  Society,  December,  1909. 


154        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

"  The  greater  the  number  of  children,"  as  Hamburger 
puts  it,  "  the  greater  the  cost  of  each  survivor  to  the 
family  and  to  the  State." 

Russia  presents  not  only  the  most  typical  but  the 
most  stupendous  and  appalling  example  of  this  process. 
Thirty  years  ago  the  mortality  of  infants  under  one 
year  was  three  times  that  of  Norway,  nearly  double 
that  of  England.  More  recently  (1896-1900)  the  in- 
fantile mortality  in  Russia  has  fallen  from  313  to  261, 
but  as  that  of  the  other  countries  has  also  fallen  it  still 
preserves  nearly  the  same  relative  position,  remaining 
the  highest  in  Europe,  while  if  we  compare  it  with 
countries  outside  Europe  we  find  it  is  considerably 
more  than  four  times  greater  than  that  of  South  Australia. 
In  one  town  in  the  government  of  Perm,  some  years 
ago  if  not  still,  the  mortality  of  infants  under  one  year 
regularly  reached  45  per  cent,  and  the  deaths  of  children 
under  five  years  constituted  half  the  total  mortality. 
This  is  abnormally  high  even  for  Russia,  but  for  all 
Russia  it  was  found  that  of  the  boys  born  in  a  single 
year  during  the  second  half  of  the  last  century  only 
50  per  cent  reached  their  twenty-first  year,  and  even  of 
these  only  37-6  per  cent  were  fit  for  military  service. 
It  is  estimated  that  there  die  in  Russia  15  per  thou- 
sand more  individuals  than  among  the  same  number 
in  England ;  this  excess  mortality  represents  a  loss  of 
1,650,000  lives  to  the  State  every  year.1 

Thus   Russia  has  the  highest  birth-rate  and  at   the 

1  Various  facts  and  references  are  given  by  Havelock  Ellis,  The 
Nationalization  oj  Health,  chap.  xiv. 


A    FALLING    BIRTH-RATE  155 

same  time  the  highest  death-rate.  The  large  countries 
which,  after  Russia,  have  the  highest  infantile  mortality 
are  Austria,  Hungary,  Prussia,  Spain,  Italy,  and  Japan  ; 
all  these,  as  we  should  expect,  have  a  somewhat  high 
birth-rate. 

The  case  of  Japan  is  interesting  as  that  of  a  vigorous 
young  Eastern  nation,  which  has  assimilated  Western 
ways  and  is  encountering  the  evils  which  come  of  those 
ways.  Japan  is  certainly  worthy  of  all  our  admiration 
for  the  skill  and  vigour  with  which  it  has  affirmed  its 
young  nationality  along  Western  lines.  But  when 
the  vital  statistics  of  Japan  are  vaguely  referred  to 
either  as  a  model  for  our  imitation  or  as  a  threatening 
peril  to  us,  we  may  do  well  to  look  into  the  matter  a 
little  more  closely.  The  infantile  mortality  of  Japan 
(1908)  is  157,  a  very  high  figure,  50  per  cent  higher 
than  that  of  England,  much  more  than  double  that 
of  New  Zealand,  or  South  Australia.  Moreover,  it  has 
rapidly  risen  during  the  last  ten  years.  The  birth- 
rate of  Japan  in  190 1-2  was  high  (36),  though  it  has 
since  fallen  to  the  level  of  ten  years  ago.  But  the  death- 
rate  has  risen  concomitantly  (to  over  24  per  1000),  and 
has  continued  to  rise  notwithstanding  the  slight  decline 
in  the  birth-rate.  We  see  here  a  tendency  to  the  sinister 
combination  of  a  falling  birth-rate  with  a  rising  death- 
rate.1  It  is  obvious  that  such  a  tendency,  if  continued, 
will  furnish  a  serious  problem  to  Japanese  social  reformers, 

1  These   are   the   figures   given   by   the   chief   Japanese   authority, 
Professor  Takano,  Journal  of  the  Royal  Statistical  Society,  July,  1910, 

P-  738- 


156        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

and  at  the  same  time  make  it  impossible  for  Western 
alarmists  to  regard  the  rise  of  Japan  as  a  menace  to  the 
world. 

It  is  behind  China  that  these  alarmists,  when  driven 
from  every  other  position,  finally  entrench  themselves. 
"  The  ultimate  future  of  these  islands  may  be  to  the 
Chinese,"  incautiously  exclaims  Mr.  Sidney  Webb, 
who  on  many  subjects,  unconnected  with  China,  speaks 
with  authority.  The  knowledge  of  the  vital  statistics 
of  China  possessed  by  our  alarmists  is  vague  to  the 
most  extreme  degree,  but  as  the  knowledge  of  all  of 
us  is  scarcely  less  vague,  they  assume  that  their  position 
is  fairly  safe.  That,  however,  is  an  altogether  question- 
able assumption.  It  seems  to  be  quite  true — though 
in  the  absence  of  exact  statistics  it  may  not  be  certain 
— that  the  birth-rate  in  China  is  very  high.  But  it  is 
quite  certain  that  the  infantile  death-rate  is  extremely 
high.  "  Out  of  ten  children  born  among  us,  three, 
normally  the  weakest  three,  will  fail  to  grow  up  :  out 
of  ten  children  born  in  China  these  weakest  three  will 
die,  and  probably  five  more  besides,"  writes  Professor 
Ross,  who  is  intimately  acquainted  with  Chinese  condi- 
tions, and  has  closely  questioned  thirty-three  physicians 
practising  in  various  parts  of  China.1  Matignon,  a  French 
physician  familiar  with  China,  states  that  it  is  the  custom 
for  a  woman  to  suckle  her  child  for  at  least  three  years  ; 
should  pregnancy  occur  during  this  period,  it  is  usual, 

1  E.  A.  Ross,  "  The  Race  Fibre  of  the  Chinese,"  Popular  Science 
Monthly,  October,  191 1.  According  to  another  competent  and  fairly 
concordant  estimate,  the  infantile  death-rate  of  China  is  90  per  cent. 
Of  the  female  infants,  probably  about  1  in  10  is  intentionally  destroyed. 


A    FALLING    BIRTH-RATE  157 

and  quite  legal,  to  procure  abortion.  Infants  brought 
up  by  hand  are  fed  on  rice-flour  and  water,  and  con- 
sequently they  nearly  all  die.1 

Putting  aside  altogether  the  question  of  infanticide, 
such  a  state  of  things  is  far  from  incredible  when  we 
remember  the  extremely  insanitary  state  of  China, 
the  superstitions  that  flourish  unchecked,  and  the  famines, 
floods,  and  pestilences  that  devastate  the  country. 
It  would  appear  probable  that  when  vital  statistics  are 
introduced  into  China  they  will  reveal  a  condition  of 
things  very  similar  to  that  we  find  in  Russia,  but  in 
a  more  marked  degree.  No  doubt  it  is  a  state  of  things 
which  will  be  remedied.  It  is  a  not  unreasonable  as- 
sumption, supported  by  many  indications,  that  China 
will  follow  Japan  in  the  adoption  of  Western  methods 
of  civilization.2  These  methods,  as  we  know,  involve 
in  the  end  a  low  birth-rate  with  a  general  tendency  to 
a  lower  death-rate.  Neither  in  the  near  nor  in  the  re- 
mote future,  under  present  conditions  or  under  probable 
future  conditions,  is  there  any  reason  for  imagining 
that  the  Chinese  are  likely  to  replace  the  Europeans 
in  Europe.3 

1  J.  J.  Matignon,  "  La  Mere  et  l'Enfant  en  Chine,"  Archives 
d' Anthropologic  Criminelle,  October  to  November,  1909. 

2  Arsene  Dumont,  for  instance,  points  out  (Depopulation  et  Civiliza- 
tion, p.  116)  that  the  very  early  marriages  and  the  reckless  fertility  of 
the  Chinese  cannot  fail  to  cease  as  soon  as  the  people  adopt  European 
ways. 

3  The  confident  estimates  of  the  future  population  of  the  world 
which  are  from  time  to  time  put  forward  on  the  basis  of  the  present 
birth-rate  are  quite  worthless.  A  brilliantly  insubstantial  fabric  of 
this  kind,  by  B.  L.  Putnam  Weale  (The  Conflict  of  Colour,  1911),  has 
been  justly  criticized  by  Professor  Weatherley  (Popular  Science 
Monthly,  November,  191 1). 


158        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

This  preliminary  survey  of  the  ground  may  enable 
us  to  realize  that  not  only  must  we  be  cautious  in  attach- 
ing importance  to  the  crude  birth-rate  until  it  is  cor- 
rected, but  that  even  as  usually  corrected  the  birth- 
rate can  give  us  no  clue  at  all  to  natural  increase  because 
there  is  a  marked  tendency  for  the  birth-rate  and  the 
infantile  death-rate  to  rise  or  sink  together.  Moreover, 
it  is  evident  that  we  have  also  to  realize  that  from  the 
point  of  view  of  society  and  civilization  there  is  a  vast 
difference  between  the  natural  increase  which  is  achieved 
by  the  effort  of  an  enormously  high  birth-rate  to  over- 
come an  almost  correspondingly  high  death-rate  and 
the  natural  increase  which  is  attained  by  the  dominance 
of  a  low  birth-rate  over  a  still  lower  death-rate. 

Having  thus  cleared  the  ground,  we  may  proceed  to 
attempt  the  interpretation  of  the  declining  birth-rate 
which  marks  civilization,  and  to  discuss  its  significance. 


ii 

It  must  be  admitted  that  it  is  not  usual  to  consider 
the  question  of  the  declining  birth-rate  from  a  broad 
or  scientific  standpoint.  As  we  have  seen,  no  attempt 
is  usually  made  to  correct  the  crude  birth-rate  ;  still 
more  rarely  is  it  pointed  out  that  we  cannot  consider 
the  significance  of  a  falling  birth-rate  apart  from  the 
question  of  the  death-rate,  and  that  the  net  increase 
or  decrease  in  a  nation  can  only  be  judged  by  taking 
both  these  factors  into  account.  It  is  scarcely  necessary 
to  add,  in  view  of  so  superficial  a  way  of  looking   at 


A    FALLING    BIRTH-RATE  159 

the  problem,  that  we  hardly  ever  find  any  attempt  to 
deal  with  the  more  fundamental  question  of  the  mean- 
ing of  a  low  birth-rate,  and  the  problematical  character 
of  the  advantages  of  rapid  multiplication.  The  whole 
question  is  usually  left  to  the  ignorant  preachers  of  the 
gospel  of  brute  force,  would-be  patriots  who  desire 
their  own  country  to  increase  at  the  cost  of  all  other 
countries,  not  merely  in  ignorance  of  the  fact  that  the 
crude  birth-rate  is  not  the  index  of  increase,  but  reckless 
of  the  effect  their  desire,  if  fulfilled,  would  have  upon 
all  the  higher  and  finer  ends  of  living. 

When  the  question  is  thus  narrowly  and  ignorantly 
considered,  it  is  usual  to  account  for  the  decreased 
birth-rate,  the  smaller  average  families,  and  the  ten- 
dency to  postpone  the  age  of  marriage,  as  due  mainly 
to  a  love  of  luxury  and  vice,  combined  with  a  newly 
acquired  acquaintance  with  Neo-Malthusian  methods,1 
which  must  be  combated,  and  may  successfully  be 
combated,  by  inculcating,  as  a  moral  and  patriotic 
duty,  the  necessity  of  marrying  early  and  procreating 
large  families.2     In  France,  the  campaign  against  the 

1  It  is  sometimes  convenient  to  use  the  term  "  Neo-Malthusianism  " 
to  indicate  the  voluntary  limitation  of  the  family,  but  it  must  always  be 
remembered  that  Malthus  would  not  have  approved  of  Neo-Malthusian- 
ism, and  that  Neo-Malthusian  practices  have  nothing  to  do  with  the 
theory  of  Malthus.  They  would  not  be  affected  could  that  theory 
be  conclusively  proved  or  conclusively  disproved. 

2  We  even  find  the  demand  that  bachelors  and  spinsters  shall  be 
taxed.  This  proposal  has  been  actually  accepted  (191 1)  by  the  Land- 
tag of  the  little  Principality  of  Reuss,  which  proposes  to  tax  bachelors 
and  spinsters  over  thirty  years  of  age.  Putting  aside  the  arguable 
questions  as  to  whether  a  State  is  entitled  to  place  such  pressure  on  its 
citizens,  it  must  be  pointed  out  that  it  is  not  marriage  but  the  child 


160        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

religious  Orders  in  their  educational  capacity,  while 
doubtless  largely  directed  against  educational  inefficiency, 
was  also  supported  by  the  feeling  that  such  education 
is  not  on  the  side  of  family  life  ;  and  Arsene  Dumont, 
one  of  the  most  vigorous  champions  of  a  strenuously 
active  policy  for  increasing  the  birth-rate,  openly  pro- 
tested against  allowing  any  place  as  teachers  to  priests, 
monks,  and  nuns,  whose  direct  and  indirect  in- 
fluence must  degrade  the  conception  of  sex  and  its 
duties  while  exalting  the  place  of  celibacy.  In  the 
United  States,  also,  Engelmann,  who,  as  a  gynaecologist, 
was  able  to  see  this  process  from  behind  the  scenes, 
urged  his  fellow-countrymen  "  to  stay  the  dangerous 
and  criminal  practices  which  are  the  main  determining 
factors  of  decreasing  fecundity,  and  which  deprive 
women  of  health,  the  family  of  its  highest  blessings, 
and  the  nation  of  its  staunchest  support."1 

which  concerns  the  State.  It  is  possible  to  have  children  without 
marriage,  and  marriage  does  not  ensure  the  procreation  of  children. 
Therefore  it  would  be  more  to  the  point  to  tax  the  childless.  In  that 
case,  it  would  be  necessary  to  remit  the  tax  in  the  case  of  unmarried 
people  with  children,  and  to  levy  it  in  the  case  of  married  people  without 
children.  But  it  has  further  to  be  remembered  that  not  all  persons 
are  fitted  to  have  sound  children,  and  as  unsound  children  are  a  burden 
and  not  a  benefit  to  the  State,  the  State  ought  to  reward  rather  than 
to  fine  those  conscientious  persons  who  refrain  from  procreation  when 
they  are  too  poor,  or  with  too  defective  a  heredity,  to  be  likely  to  pro- 
duce, or  to  bring  up,  sound  children.  Moreover,  some  persons  are  sterile, 
and  thorough  medical  investigation  would  be  required  before  they 
could  fairly  be  taxed.  As  soon  as  we  begin  to  analyse  such  a  proposal 
we  cannot  fail  to  see  that,  even  granting  that  the  aim  of  such  legislation 
is  legitimate  and  desirable,  the  method  of  attaining  it  is  thoroughly 
mischievous  and  unjustifiable. 

1  J.  G.  Engelmann,  "  Decreasing  Fecundity,"  Philadelphia  Medical 
Journal,  January  18,  1902. 


A    FALLING    BIRTH-RATE  161 

We  must,  however,  look  at  these  phenomena  a  little 
more  broadly,  and  bring  them  into  relation  with  other 
series  of  phenomena.  It  is  almost  beyond  dispute  that 
a  voluntary  restriction  of  the  number  of  offspring  by 
Neo-Malthusian  practices  is  at  least  one  of  the  chief 
methods  by  which  the  birth-rate  has  been  lowered. 
It  may  not  indeed  be — and  probably,  as  we  shall  see, 
is  not — the  only  method.  It  has  even  been  denied 
that  the  prevalence  of  Neo-Malthusian  practices  counts 
at  all.1  Thus  while  Coghlan,  the  Government  Statistician 
of  New  South  Wales,  concludes  that  the  decline  in  the 
birth-rate  in  the  Australian  Commonwealth  was  due 
to  "  the  art  of  applying  artificial  checks  to  conception," 
McLean,  the  Government  Statistician  of  Victoria,  con- 


1  It  has,  further,  been  frequently  denied  that  Neo-Malthusian  prac- 
tices can  affect  Roman  Catholic  countries,  since  the  Church  is  precluded 
from  approving  of  them.  That  is  true.  But  it  is  also  true  that,  as 
Lagneau  long  since  pointed  out,  the  Protestants  of  Europe  have  increased 
at  more  than  double  the  annual  rate  of  the  Catholics,  though  this  relation- 
ship has  now  ceased  to  be  exact.  Dumont  states  (Depopulation  et 
Civilisation,  chap,  xvm)  that  there  is  not  the  slightest  reason  to 
suppose  that  (apart  from  the  question  of  poverty)  the  faithful  have 
more  children  than  the  irreligious  ;  moreover,  in  dealing  with  its  more 
educated  members,  it  is  not  the  policy  of  the  Church  to  make  indiscreet 
inquiries  (see  Havelock  Ellis,  Studies  in  the  Psychology  of  Sex,  Vol.  VI, 
"  Sex  in  Relation  to  Society,"  p.  590).  A  Catholic  bishop  is  reported 
to  have  warned  his  clergy  against  referring  in  their  Lent  sermons 
to  the  voluntary  restriction  of  conception,  remarking  that  an  excess 
of  rigour  in  this  matter  would  cause  the  Church  to  lose  half  her  flock. 
The  fall  in  the  birth-rate  is  as  marked  in  Catholic  as  in  Protestant 
countries ;  the  Catholic  communities  in  which  this  is  not  the  case 
are  few,  and  placed  in  exceptional  circumstances.  It  must  be  remem- 
bered, moreover,  that  the  Church  enjoins  celibacy  on  its  clergy,  and 
that  celibacy  is  practically  a  Malthusian  method.  It  is  not  easy  while 
preaching  practical  Malthusianism  to  the  clergy  to  spend  much  fervour 
in  preaching  against  practical  Neo-Malthusianism  to  the  laity. 

M 


162        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

eludes  that  it  was  "  due  mainly  to  natural  causes."  1 
He  points  out  that  when  the  birth-rate  in  Australia, 
half  a  century  ago,  was  nearly  43  per  1000,  the  popu- 
lation consisted  chiefly  of  men  and  women  at  the  re- 
productive period  of  life,  and  that  since  then  the  pro- 
portion of  persons  at  these  ages  has  declined,  leading 
necessarily  to  a  decline  in  the  crude  birth-rate.  If  we 
compare  the  birth-rate  of  communities  among  women 
of  the  same  age-periods,  McLean  argues,  we  may  obtain 
results  quite  different  from  the  crude  birth-rate.  Thus 
the  crude  birth-rate  of  Buda-Pesth  is  much  higher 
than  that  of  New  South  Wales,  but  if  we  ascertain  the 
birth-rate  of  married  women  at  different  age-periods 
(15  to  20,  20  to  25,  etc.)  the  New  South  Wales  birth-rate 
is  higher  for  every  age-period  than  that  of  Buda-Pesth. 
McLean  considers  that  in  young  communities  with  many 
vigorous  immigrants  the  population  is  normally  more 
prolific  than  in  older  and  more  settled  communities, 
and  that  hardships  and  financial  depression  still  more 
depress  the  birth-rate.  He  further  emphasizes  the 
important  relationship,  which  we  must  never  lose  sight 
of  in  this  connection,  between  a  high  birth-rate  and  a 
high  death-rate,  especially  a  high  infantile  death-rate, 
and  he  believes,  indeed,  that  "  the  solution  of  the  problem 
of  the  general  decline  in  the  birth-rate  throughout 
all  civilized  communities  lies  in  the  preservation  of 
human  life."  The  mechanism  of  the  connection  would 
be,  he  maintains,  that  prolonged  suckling  in  the  case 

1  McLean,  "The  Declining  Birth-rate  in  Australia,"  International 
Medical  Journal  of  Australasia,  1904. 


A    FALLING    BIRTH-RATE  163 

of  living  children  increases  the  intervals  between  child- 
bearing.  As  we  have  seen,  there  is  a  tendency,  though 
not  a  rigid  and  invariable  necessity,1  for  a  high  birth-rate 
to  be  associated  with  a  high  infantile  death-rate,  and 
a  low  birth-rate  with  a  low  infantile  death-rate.  Thus 
in  Victoria,  we  have  the  striking  fact  that  while  the  birth- 
rate has  declined  24  per  cent  the  infantile  death-rate 
has  declined  approximately  to  the  still  greater  extent 
of  27  per  cent. 

No  doubt  the  chief  cause  of  the  reduction  of  the 
birth-rate  has  been  its  voluntary  restriction  by  pre- 
ventive methods  due  to  the  growth  of  intelligence, 
knowledge,  and  foresight.  In  all  the  countries  where 
a  marked  decline  in  the  birth-rate  has  occurred  there 
is  good  reason  to  believe  that  Neo-Malthusian  methods 
are  generally  known  and  practised.  So  far  as  England 
is  concerned  this  is  certainly  the  case.  A  few  years 
ago  Mr.  Sidney  Webb  made  inquiries  among  middle- 
class  people  in  all  parts  of  the  country,  and  found  that 
in  316  marriages  242  were  thus  limited  and  only  74 
unlimited,  while  for  the  ten  years  1890-9  out  of  120 
marriages  107  were  limited  and  only  13  unlimited, 
but  as  five  of  these  13  were  childless  there  were  only 
8  unlimited  fertile  marriages  out  of  120.  As  to  the 
causes  assigned  for  limiting  the  number  of  children,  in 

1  Thus  in  France  the  low  birth-rate  is  associated  with  a  high  infantile 
death-rate,  which  has  not  yet  been  appreciably  influenced  by  the 
movement  of  puericulture  in  France.  In  England  also,  at  the  end  of 
the  last  century,  the  declining  birth-rate  was  accompanied  by  a  rising 
infantile  death-rate,  which  is  now,  however,  declining  under  the 
influence  of  greater  care  of  child-life. 


164        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

73  out  of  128  cases  in  which  particulars  were  given 
under  this  head  the  poverty  of  the  parents  in  relation 
to  their  standard  of  comfort  was  a  factor  ;  sexual  ill- 
health — that  is,  generally,  the  disturbing  effect  of  child- 
bearing — in  24  ;  and  other  forms  of  ill-health  of  the  parents 
in  38  cases ;  in  24  cases  the  disinclination  of  the  wife 
was  a  factor,  and  the  death  of  a  parent  had  in  8  cases 
terminated  the  marriage.1  In  the  skilled  artisan  class 
there  is  also  good  reason  to  believe  that  the  voluntary 
limitation  of  families  is  constantly  becoming  more 
usual,  and  the  statistics  of  benefit  societies  show  a  marked 
decline  in  the  fertility  of  superior  working-class  people 
during  recent  years  ;  thus  it  is  stated  by  Sidney  Webb 
that  the  Hearts  of  Oak  Friendly  Society  paid  benefits 
on  child-birth  to  2472  per  10,000  members  in  1880 ; 
by  1904  the  proportion  had  fallen  to  1165  per  10,000, 
a  much  greater  fall  than  occurred  in  England  generally. 

The  voluntary  adoption  of  preventive  precautions 
may  not  be,  however,  the  only  method  by  which  the 
birth-rate  has  declined  ;  we  may  have  also  to  recognize 
a  concomitant  physiological  sterility,  induced  by  de- 
layed marriage  and  its  various  consequences ;  we  have 
also  to  recognize  pathological  sterility  due  to  the  im- 
paired vitality  and  greater  liability  to  venereal  disease  of 
an  increasingly  urban  life  »  and  we  may  have  to  recognize 
that  stocks  differ  from  one  another  in  fertility. 

The  delay  in  marriage,  as  studied  in  England,  is  so 
far  apparently  slight ;   the  mean  age  of  marriage  for 

1  Sidney  Webb,  Times,  October  11  and  16,  1906;  also  Popular 
Science  Monthly,  1906,  p.  526. 


A    FALLING    BIRTH-RATE  165 

all  husbands  in  England  has  increased  from  28-43  in 
1896  to  28-88  in  1909,  and  the  mean  age  of  all  wives 
from  26-21  in  1896  to  26-69  in  1909.  This  seems  a  very 
trifling  rate  of  progression.  If,  however,  we  look  at 
the  matter  in  another  way  we  find  that  there  has  been 
an  extremely  serious  reduction  in  the  number  of  marriages 
between  15  to  20,  normally  the  most  fecund  of  all  age- 
periods.  Between  1876  and  1880  (according  to  the 
Registrar-General's  Report  for  1909)  the  proportion 
of  minors  in  1000  marriages  in  England  and  Wales 
was  77-8  husbands  and  217-0  wives.  In  1909  it  had  fallen 
to  only  39-8  husbands  and  137-7  wives.  It  has  been 
held  that  this  has  not  greatly  affected  the  decline  in 
the  birth-rate.  Its  tendency,  however,  must  be  in 
that  direction.  It  is  true  that  Engelmann  argued  that 
delayed  marriages  had  no  effect  at  all  on  the  birth-rate. 
But  it  has  been  clearly  shown  that  as  the  age  of  mar- 
riage increases  fecundity  distinctly  diminishes.1  This  is 
illustrated  by  the  specially  elaborate  statistics  of  Scotland 
for  1855  ;  2  the  number  of  women  having  children, 
that  is,  the  fecundity,  was  higher  in  the  years  15  to  19, 
than  at  any  subsequent  age-period,  except  20  to  24, 
and  the  fact  that  the  earliest  age-group  is  not  absolutely 
highest  is  due  to  the  presence  of  a  number  of  immature 
women.    In  New  South  Wales,  Coghlan  has  shown  that 

1  It  is  important  to  remember  the  distinction  between  "  fecundity  " 
and  "  fertility."  A  woman  who  has  one  child  has  proved  that  she  is 
fecund,  but  has  not  proved  that  she  is  fertile.  A  woman  with  six 
children  has  proved  that  she  is  not  only  fecund  but  fertile. 

2  They  have  been  worked  out  by  C.  J.  Lewis  and  J.  Norman  Lewis, 
Natality  and  Fecundity,  1905. 


166        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

if  the  average  number  of  children  is  3-6,  then  a  woman 
marrying  at  20  may  expect  to  have  five  children,  a  woman 
marrying  at  28  three  children,  at  32  two  children,  and  at 
y]  one  child.  Newsholme  and  Stevenson,  again,  con- 
clude that  the  general  law  of  decline  of  fertility  with 
advancing  age  of  the  mother  is  shown  in  various  coun- 
tries, and  that  in  nearly  all  countries  the  mothers  aged 
15  to  20  have  the  largest  number  of  children  ;  the  chief 
exception  is  in  the  case  of  some  northern  countries  like 
Norway  and  Finland,  where  women  develop  late,  and 
there  it  is  the  mothers  of  20  to  25  who  have  the  largest 
number  of  children.1  The  postponement  in  the  age  of 
marriage  during  recent  years  is,  however,  so  slight  that 
it  can  only  account  for  a  small  part  of  the  decline  in  the 
birth-rate  ;  Coghlan  calculates  that  of  unborn  possible 
children  in  New  South  Wales  the  loss  of  only  about  one- 
sixth  is  to  be  attributed  to  this  cause.  In  London,  how- 
ever, Heron  considers  that  the  recognized  connection  be- 
tween a  low  birth-rate  and  a  high  social  standing  might 
have  been  entirely  accounted  for  sixty  years  ago  by 
postponement  of  marriage,  and  that  such  postponement 
may  still  account  for  50  per  cent  of  it.2 

It  is  not  enough,  however,  to  consider  the  mechanism 
by  which  the  birth-rate  declines ;  to  realize  the  signifi- 
cance of  the  decline  we  must  consider  the  causes  which 
set  the  mechanism  in  action. 

We  begin  to  obtain  a  truer  insight  into  the  meaning 

1  Newsholme  and  Stevenson,  op.  cit. ;  Rubin  and  Westergaard, 
Statistik  der  Ehen,  1890,  p.  95. 

2  D.  Heron,  "  On  the  Relation  of  Fertility  in  Man  to  Social  Status," 
Drapers'  Company  Research  Memoirs,  No.  1,  1906. 


A    FALLING    BIRTH-RATE  167 

of  the  curve  of  a  country's  birth-rate  when  we  realize 
that  it  is  in  relation  with  the  industrial  and  commercial 
activity  of  the  country.1  It  is  sometimes  stated  that  a 
high  birth-rate  goes  with  a  high  degree  of  national  pros- 
perity. That,  however,  is  scarcely  the  case  ;  we  have  to 
look  into  the  matter  a  little  more  closely.  And,  when 
we  do  so,  we  find  that,  not  only  is  the  statement  of  a 
supposed  connection  between  a  high  birth-rate  and  a 
high  degree  of  prosperity  an  imperfect  statement ;  it  is 
altogether  misleading. 

If,  in  the  first  place,  we  attempt  to  consider  the  state 
of  things  among  savages,  we  find,  indeed,  great  variations, 
and  the  birth-rate  is  not  infrequently  low.  But,  on  the 
whole,  it  would  appear,  the  marriage-rate,  the  birth-rate, 
and,  it  may  be  added,  the  death-rate  are  all  alike  high. 
Karl  Ranke  has  investigated  the  question  with  consider- 
able care  among  the  Trumai  and  Nahuqua  Indians  of 
Central  Brazil.2  These  tribes  are  yet  totally  uncontami- 
nated  by  contact  with  European  influences  ;  consump- 
tion and  syphilis  are  alike  unknown.  In  the  two  villages 
he  investigated  in  detail,  Ranke  found  that  every  man 
over  twenty-five  years  of  age  was  married,  and  that  the 
only  unmarried  woman  he  discovered  was  feeble-minded. 

1  The  recognition  of  this  relationship  must  not  be  regarded  as  an 
attempt  unduly  to  narrow  down  the  causation  of  changes  in  the  birth- 
rate. The  great  complexity  of  the  causes  influencing  the  birth-rate 
is  now  fairly  well  recognized,  and  has,  for  instance,  been  pointed  out  by 
Goldscheid,  Hoherentwicklung  und  Menschenbkonomie,  Vol.  I,  1911. 

s  In  a  paper  read  at  the  Brunswick  Meeting  of  the  German  Anthro- 
pological Society  (Correspondenzblalt  of  the  Society,  November,  1898) ; 
a  great  many  facts  concerning  the  fecundity  of  women  among  savages 
in  various  parts  of  the  world  are  brought  together  by  Ploss  and  Bartels, 
Das  Weib,  Vol  I,  chap.  xxiv. 


168       THE   TASK    OF    SOCIAL   HYGIENE 

The  average  size  of  the  families  of  those  women  who  were 
over  forty  years  of  age  was  between  five  and  six  children, 
while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  mortality  among  children 
was  great,  and  a  relatively  small  proportion  of  the  popu- 
lation reached  old  age.  We  see  therefore  that,  among 
these  fairly  typical  savages,  living  under  simple  natural 
conditions,  the  fertility  of  the  women  is  as  high  as  it  is 
among  all  but  the  most  prolific  of  European  peoples  ; 
while,  in  striking  contrast  with  European  peoples,  among 
whom  a  large  percentage  of  the  population  never  marry, 
and  of  those  who  do,  many  have  no  children,  practically 
every  man  and  woman  both  marries  and  produces 
children. 

If  we  leave  savages  out  of  the  question  and  return  to 
Europe,  it  is  still  instructive  to  find  that  among  those 
peoples  who  live  under  the  most  primitive  conditions 
much  the  same  state  of  things  may  be  found  as  among 
savages.  This  is  notably  the  case  as  regards  Russia.  In 
no  other  great  European  country  do  the  bulk  of  the 
women  marry  at  so  early  an  age,  and  in  no  other  is  the 
average  size  of  the  family  so  large.  And,  concomitantly 
with  a  very  high  marriage-rate  and  a  very  high  birth-rate, 
we  find  in  Russia,  in  an  equally  high  degree,  the  prevalence 
among  the  masses  of  infantile  and  general  mortality, 
disease  (epidemical  and  other),  starvation,  misery.1 

1  The  proportion  of  doctors  to  the  population  is  very  small,  and  the 
people  still  have  great  confidence  in  their  quacks  and  witch-doctors. 
The  elementary  rules  of  sanitation  are  generally  neglected,  water 
supplies  are  polluted,  filth  is  piled  up  in  the  streets  and  the  courtyards, 
as  it  was  in  England  and  Western  Europe  generally  until  a  century  ago, 
and  the  framing  of  regulations  or  the  incursions  of  the  police  have 
little  effect  on  the  habits  of  the  people.     Neglect  of  the  ordinary 


A    FALLING    BIRTH-RATE  169 

So  far  we  scarcely  see  any  marked  connection  between 
high  fertility  and  prosperity.  It  is  more  nearly  in- 
dicated in  the  high  birth-rate  of  Hungary — only  second 
to  that  of  Russia,  and  also  accompanied  by  a  high 
mortality — which  is  associated  with  the  rapid  and 
notable  development  of  a  young  nationality.  The  case 
of  Hungary  is,  indeed,  typical.  In  so  far  as  high  fertility 
is  associated  with  prosperity,  it  is  with  the  prosperity  of 
a  young  and  unstable  community,  which  has  experienced 
a  sudden  increase  of  wealth  and  a  sudden  expansion. 
The  case  of  Western  Australia  illustrates  the  same  point. 
Thirty  years  ago  the  marriage-rate  and  the  birth-rate  of 
this  colony  were  on  the  same  level  as  those  of  the  other 
Australian  colonies  ;  but  a  sudden  industrial  expansion 
occurred,  both  rates  rose,  and  in  1899  the  fertility  of 
Western  Australia  was  higher  than  that  of  any  other 
English-speaking  community.1 

If  now  we  put  together  the  facts  observed  in  savage 
life  and  the  facts  observed  in  civilized  life,  we  shall  begin 
to  see  the  real  nature  of  the  factors  that  operate  to  raise 

precautions  of  cleanliness  is  responsible  for  the  wide  extension  of 
syphilis  by  the  use  of  drinking  vessels,  towels,  etc.,  in  common.  Not 
only  is  typhoid  prevalent  in  nearly  every  province  of  Russia,  but 
typhus,  which  is  peculiarly  the  disease  of  filth,  overcrowding,  and 
starvation,  and  has  long  been  practically  extinct  in  England,  still 
nourishes  and  causes  an  immense  mortality.  The  workers  often  hare 
no  homes  and  sleep  in  the  factories  amidst  the  machinery,  men  and 
women  together  ;  their  food  is  insufficient,  and  the  hours  of  labour 
may  vary  from  twelve  to  fourteen.  When  famine  occurs  these  con- 
ditions are  exaggerated,  and  various  epidemics  ravage  the  population. 
1  It  must,  however,  be  remembered  that  in  small  and  unstable 
communities  a  considerable  margin  for  error  must  be  allowed,  as  the 
crude  birth-rate  is  unduly  raised  by  an  afflux  of  immigrants  at  the 
reproductive  age. 


170        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

or  lower  the  fertility  of  a  community.  It  is  far,  indeed, 
from  being  prosperity  which  produces  a  high  fertility, 
for  the  most  wretched  communities  are  the  most  prolific, 
but,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  by  no  means  the  mere  ab- 
sence of  prosperity  which  produces  fertility,  for  we  con- 
stantly observe  that  the  on-coming  of  a  wave  of  prosperity 
elevates  the  birth-rate.  In  both  cases  alike  it  is  the 
absence  of  social-economic  restraints  which  conduces  to 
high  fertility.  In  the  simple,  primitive  community  of 
savages,  serfs,  or  slaves,  there  is  no  restraint  on  either 
nutritive  or  reproductive  enjoyments ;  there  is  no 
adequate  motive  for  restraint ;  there  are  no  claims  of 
future  wants  to  inhibit  the  gratification  of  present  wants  ; 
there  are  no  high  standards,  no  ideals.  Supposing, 
again,  that  such  restraints  have  been  established  by  a 
certain  amount  of  forethought  as  regards  the  future,  or 
a  certain  calculation  as  to  social  advantages  to  be  gained 
by  limiting  the  number  of  children,  a  check  on  natural 
fertility  is  established.  But  a  sudden  accession  of  pros- 
perity— a  sudden  excess  of  work  and  wages  and  food — 
sweeps  away  this  check  by  apparently  rendering  it  un- 
necessary ;  the  natural  reproductive  impulse  is  liberated 
by  this  rising  wave,  and  we  here  see  whatever  truth 
there  is  in  the  statement  that  prosperity  means  a  high 
birth-rate.  In  reality,  however,  prosperity  in  such  a 
case  merely  increases  fertility  because  its  sudden  affluence 
reduces  a  community  to  the  same  careless  indifference 
in  regard  to  the  future,  the  same  hasty  snatching  at  the 
pleasures  of  the  moment,  as  we  find  among  the  most 
hopeless   and   least    prosperous   communities.      It   is   a 


A    FALLING    BIRTH-RATE  171 

significant  fact,  as  shown  by  Beveridge,  that  the  years 
when  the  people  of  Great  Britain  marry  most  are  the 
years  when  they  drink  most.  It  is  in  the  absence  of 
social-economic  restraints — the  absence  of  the  perception 
of  such  restraints,  or  the  absence  of  the  ability  to  act  in  ac- 
cordance with  such  perception — that  the  birth-rate  is  high. 

Arsene  Dumont  seems  to  have  been  one  of  the  first 
who  observed  this  significance  of  the  oscillation  of  the 
birth-rate,  though  he  expressed  it  in  a  somewhat  peculiar 
way,  as  the  social  capillarity  theory.  It  is  the  natural 
and  universal  tendency  of  mankind  to  ascend,  he  declared; 
a  high  birth-rate  and  a  strong  ascensional  impulse  are 
mutually  contradictory.  Large  families  are  only  possible 
when  there  is  no  progress,  and  no  expectation  of  it  can 
be  cherished  ;  small  families  become  possible  when  the 
way  has  been  opened  to  progress.  "  One  might  say," 
Dumont  puts  it,  "  that  invisible  valves,  like  those  which 
direct  the  circulation  of  the  blood,  have  been  placed  by 
Nature  to  direct  the  current  of  human  aspiration  in  the 
upward  path  it  has  prescribed."  As  the  proletariat  is 
enabled  to  enjoy  the  prospect  of  rising  it  comes  under 
the  action  of  this  law  of  social  capillarity,  and  the  birth- 
rate falls.  It  is  the  effort  towards  an  indefinite  per- 
fection, Dumont  declares,  which  justifies  Nature  and 
Man,  consoles  us  for  our  griefs,  and  constitutes  our 
sovereign  safeguard  against  the  philosophy  of  despair.1 

When  we  thus  interpret  the  crude  facts  of  the  falling 

1  Arsene  Dumont,  Depopulation  et  Civilisation,  1890,  chap.  vi.  The 
nature  of  the  restraint  on  fertility  has  been  well  set  forth  by  Dr.  Bushee 
("  The  Declining  Birth-rate  and  its  Causes,"  Popular  Science  Monthly, 
August,  1903),  mainly  in  the  termsof  DumontV'socialcapillarity"  theory. 


172       THE   TASK    OF    SOCIAL   HYGIENE 

birth-rate,  viewing  them  widely  and  calmly  in  connec- 
tion with  the  other  social  facts  with  which  they  are 
intimately  related,  we  are  able  to  see  how  foolish  has 
been  the  outcry  against  a  falling  birth-rate,  and  how 
false  the  supposition  that  it  is  due  to  a  new  selfishness 
replacing  an  ancient  altruism.1  On  the  contrary,  the 
excessive  birth-rate  of  the  early  industrial  period  was 
directly  stimulated  by  selfishness.  There  were  no  laws 
against  child-labour ;  children  were  produced  that  they 
might  be  sent  out,  when  little  more  than  babies,  to  the 
factories  and  the  mines  to  increase  their  parents'  income. 
The  fundamental  instincts  of  men  and  women  do  not 
change,  but  their  direction  can  be  changed.  In  this  field 
the  change  is  towards  a  higher  transformation,  introducing 
a  finer  economy  into  life,  diminishing  death,  disease,  and 
misery,  making  possible  the  finer  ends  of  living,  and  at  the 
same  time  indirectly  and  even  directly  improving  the 
quality  of  the  future  race.2    This  is  now  becoming  recog- 

1  Even  Dr.  Newsholme,  usually  so  cautious  and  reliable  an  investi- 
gator in  this  field,  has  been  betrayed  into  a  reference  in  this  connection 
(The  Declining  Birth-rate,  1911,  p.  41)  to  the  "  increasing  rarity  of 
altruism,"  though  in  almost  the  next  paragraph  he  points  out  that  the 
large  families  of  the  past  were  connected  with  the  fact  that  the  child 
was  a  profitable  asset,  and  could  be  sent  to  work  when  little  more  than 
an  infant.  The  "  altruism  "  which  results  in  crushing  the  minds  and 
bodies  of  others  in  order  to  increase  one's  own  earnings  is  not  an 
"  altruism  "  which  we  need  desire  to  perpetuate.  The  beneficial  effect 
of  legislation  against  child-labour  in  reducing  an  unduly  high  birth-rate 
has  often  been  pointed  out. 

2  It  may  suffice  to  take  a  single  point.  Large  families  involve  the 
birth  of  children  at  very  short  intervals.  It  has  been  clearly  shown 
by  Dr.  R.  J.  Ewart  ("  The  Influence  of  Parental  Age  on  Offspring," 
Eugenics  Review,  October,  191 1)  that  children  born  at  an  interval  of 
less  than  two  years  after  the  birth  of  the  previous  child,  lemain,  even 
when  they  have  reached  their  sixth  year,  three  inches  shorter  and  three 
pounds  lighter  than  first-born  children. 


A    FALLING    BIRTH-RATE  173 

nized  by  nearly  all  calm  and  sagacious  inquirers. x  The  wild 
outcry  of  many  unbalanced  persons  to-day,  that  a  falling 
birth-rate  means  degeneration  and  disaster,  is  so  al- 
together removed  from  the  sphere  of  reason  that  we 
ought  perhaps  to  regard  it  as  comparable  to  those  manias 
which,  in  former  centuries,  have  assumed  other  forms 
more  attractive  to  the  neurotic  temperament  of  those 
days  ;  fortunately,  it  is  a  mania  which,  in  the  nature  of 
things,  is  powerless  to  realize  itself,  and  we  need  not 
anticipate  that  the  outcry  against  small  families  will 
have  the  same  results  as  the  ancient  outcry  against 
witches.2 

It  may  be  proper  at  this  stage  to  point  out  that  while, 
in  the  foregoing  statement,  a  high  birth-rate  and  a  high 
marriage-rate  have  been  regarded  as  practically  the 
same  thing,  we  need  to  make  a  distinction.  The  true 
relation  of  the  two  rates  may  be  realized  when  it  is 
stated  that,  the  more  primitive  a  community  is,  the 
more  closely  the  two  rates  vary  together.  As  a  com- 
munity becomes  more  civilized  and  more  complex,  the 
two   rates   tend   to   diverge ;     the   restraints   on   child- 

1  For  instance,  Goldscheid,  in  his  Hoherentwicklung  uud  Menschenoko- 
nomie  ;  it  is  also,  on  the  whole,  the  conclusion  of  Newsholme,  though 
expressed  in  an  exceedingly  temperate  manner,  in  his  Declining  Birth- 
rate. 

2  If,  however,  our  birth-rate  fanatics  should  hear  of  the  results 
obtained  at  the  experimental  farm  at  Roseville,  California,  by  Professor 
Silas  Wentworth,  who  has  found  that  by  placing  ewes  in  a  field  under 
the  power  wires  of  an  electric  wire  company,  the  average  production 
of  lambs  is  more  than  doubled,  we  may  anticipate  trouble  in  many 
hitherto  small  families.  Their  predecessors  insisted,  in  the  cause  of 
religion  and  morals,  on  burning  witches  ;  we  must  not  be  surprised  if 
our  modern  fanatics,  in  the  same  holy  cause,  clamour  for  a  law  com- 
pelling all  childless  women  to  live  under  electric  wires. 


174        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

production  are  deeper  and  more  complex  than  those  on 
marriage,  so  that  the  removal  of  the  restraint  on  marriage 
by  no  means  removes  the  restraint  on  fertility.  They 
tend  to  diverge  in  opposite  directions.  Farr  considered 
the  marriage-rate  among  civilized  peoples  as  a  barometer 
of  national  prosperity.  In  former  years,  when  corn  was 
a  great  national  product,  the  marriage-rate  in  England 
rose  regularly  as  the  price  of  wheat  fell.  Of  recent  years 
it  has  become  very  difficult  to  estimate  exactly  what 
economic  factors  affect  the  marriage-rate.  It  is  believed 
by  some  that  the  marriage-rate  rises  or  falls  with  the 
value  of  exports.1  Udny  Yule,  however,  in  an  expertly 
statistical  study  of  the  matter,2  finds  (in  agreement 
with  Hooker)  that  neither  exports  nor  imports  tally 
with  the  marriage-rate.  He  concludes  that  the  move- 
ment of  prices  is  a  predominant — though  by  no  means 
the  sole — factor  in  the  change  of  marriage-rates,  a  fall 
in  prices  producing  a  fall  in  the  marriage-rates  and  also 
in  the  birth-rates,  though  he  also  thinks  that  pressure 
on  the  labour  market  has  forced  both  rates  lower  than 
the  course  of  prices  would  lead  one  to  expect.  In  so  far 
as  these  causes  are  concerned,  Udny  Yule  states,  the  fall 
is  quite  normal  and  pessimistic  views  are  misplaced. 
Udny  Yule,  however,  appears  to  be  by  no  means  con- 
fident that  his  explanation  covers  a  large  part  of  the 
causation,  and  he  admits  that  he  cannot  understand 
the  rationale  of  the  connection  between  marriage-rates 

1  J.  Holt  Schooling,  "  The  English  Marriage  Rate,"  Fortnightly 
Review,  June,  1901. 

s  G.  Udny  Yule,  "  Changes  in  the  Marriage-  and  Birth-rate  in 
England,"  Journal  of  the  Royal  Statistical  Society,  March,  1906. 


A    FALLING    BIRTH-RATE  175 

and  prices.  The  curves  of  the  marriage-rates  in  many 
countries  indicate  a  maximum  about  or  shortly  before, 
!875,  when  the  birth-rate  also  tended  to  reach  a 
maximum,  and  another  rise  towards  1900,  thus  making 
the  intermediate  curve  concave.  There  was,  however, 
a  large  rise  in  money  wages  between  i860  and  1875,  and 
the  rise  in  the  consuming  power  of  the  population  has 
been  continuous  since  1850.  Thus  the  factors  favour- 
able to  a  high  marriage-rate  must  have  risen  from  1850 
to  a  maximum  about  1870-1875,  and  since  then  have 
fallen  continuously.  This  statement,  which  Mr.  Udny 
Yule  emphasizes,  certainly  seems  highly  significant  from 
our  present  point  of  view.  It  falls  into  line  with  the 
view  here  accepted,  that  the  first  result  of  a  sudden 
access  of  prosperity  is  to  produce  a  general  orgy,  a  reck- 
less and  improvident  haste  to  take  advantage  of  the  new 
prosperity,  but  that,  as  the  effects  of  the  orgy  wear  off, 
it  necessarily  gives  place  to  new  ideals,  and  to  higher 
standards  of  life  which  lead  to  caution  and  prudence. 
Mr.  N.  A.  Hooker  seems  to  have  perceived  this,  and  in 
the  discussion  which  followed  the  reading  of  Udny  Yule's 
paper  he  set  forth  what  (though  it  was  not  accepted  by 
Udny  Yule)  may  perhaps  fairly  be  regarded  as  the  sound 
view  of  the  matter.  "  During  the  great  expansion  of 
trade  prior  to  1870,"  he  remarked,  "  the  means  of  satisfy- 
ing the  desired  standard  of  comfort  were  increasing  much 
more  rapidly  than  the  rise  in  the  standard ;  hence  a 
decreasing  age  of  marriage  and  a  marriage-rate  above 
the  normal.  After  about  1873,  however,  the  means  of 
satisfying  the  standard  of  comfort  no  longer  increased 


176        THE   TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

with  the  same  rapidity,  and  then  a  new  factor,  he  thought, 
became  important,  viz.  the  increased  intelligence  of  the 
people."  x  This  seems  to  be  precisely  the  same  view  of 
the  matter  as  I  have  here  sought  to  set  forth  ;  pros- 
perity is  not  civilization,  its  first  tendency  is  to  produce 
a  reckless  abandonment  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  crudest 
impulses.  But  as  prosperity  develops  it  begins  to  en- 
gender more  complex  ideals  and  higher  standards ;  the 
inevitable  result  is  a  greater  forethought  and  restraint.2 
If  we  consider,  not  the  marriage-rate,  but  the  average 
age  at  marriage,  and  especially  the  age  of  the  woman, 
which  varies  less  than  that  of  the  man,  the  results, 
though  harmonious,  would  not  be  quite  the  same.  The 
general  tendency  as  regards  the  age  of  girls  at  marriage 
is  summed  up  by  Ploss  and  Bartels,  in  their  monumental 
work  on  Woman,  in  the  statement  :  "  It  may  be  said 
in  general  that  the  age  of  girls  at  marriage  is  lower, 
the  lower  the  stage  of  civilization  is  in  the  community  to 
which  they  belong."3  We  thus  see  one  reason  why  it  is 
that,  in  an  advanced  stage  of  civilization,  a  high  marriage- 

1  At  an  earlier  period  Hooker  had  investigated  the  same  subject 
without  coming  to  any  very  decisive  conclusions  ("  Correlation  of  the 
Marriage-rate  with  Trade,"  Journ.  Statistical  Soc,  September,  1901). 
Minor  fluctuations  in  marriage  and  in  trade  per  head,  he  found,  tend 
to  be  in  close  correspondence,  but  on  the  whole  trade  has  risen  and  the 
marriage-rate  has  fallen,  probably,  Hooker  believed,  as  the  result 
of  the  gradual  deferment  of  marriage. 

2  The  higher  standard  need  not  be,  among  the  mass  of  the  population, 
of  a  very  exalted  character,  although  it  marks  a  real  progress.  News- 
holme  and  Stevenson  (op.  cit.)  term  it  a  higher  "  standard  of  comfort." 
The  decline  of  the  birth-rate,  they  say,  "  is  associated  with  a  general 
raising  of  the  standard  of  comfort,  and  is  an  expression  of  the  deter- 
mination of  the  people  to  secure  this  greater  comfort." 

3  Ploss,  Das  Weib,  Vol.  I,  chap,  xx. 


A    FALLING    BIRTH-RATE  177 

rate  is  not  necessarily  associated  with  a  high  birth-rate. 
A  large  number  of  women  who  marry  late  may  have 
fewer  children  than  a  smaller  number  who  marry  early. 

We  may  see  the  real  character  of  the  restraints  on 
fertility  very  well   illustrated  by  the  varying  birth-rate 
of  the  upper  and  lower  social  classes  belonging  to  the  same 
community.     If  a  high  birth-rate  were  a  mark  of  pros- 
perity or  of  advanced  civilization,  we  should  expect  to 
find  it  among  the  better  social  class  of  a  community. 
But  the  reverse  is  the  case  ;    it  is  everywhere  the  least 
prosperous  and  the  least  cultured  classes  of  a  community 
which  show  the  highest  birth-rate.     As  we  go  from  the 
very  poor  to  the  very  rich  quarters  of  a  great  city — 
whether  Paris,  Berlin,  or  Vienna — the  average  number 
of   children   to   the   family   diminishes   regularly.     The 
difference  is  found  in  the  country  as  well  as  in  the  towns. 
In  Holland,  for  instance,  whether  in  town  or  country, 
there  are  5-19  children  per  marriage  among  the  poor, 
and  only  4-50  among  the  rich.    In  London  it  is  notorious 
that  the  same  difference  appears  ;    thus  Charles  Booth, 
the  greatest  authority  on  the  social  conditions  of  London, 
in  the  concluding  volume  of  his  vast  survey,  sums  up 
the  condition  of  things  in  the  statement  that  "  the  lower 
the  class  the  earlier  the  period   of   marriage  and  the 
greater  the  number  of  children  born  to  each  marriage." 
The  same  phenomenon   is  everywhere  found,  and  it  is 
one  of  great  significance. 

The  significance  becomes  clearer  when  we  realize 
that  an  urban  population  must  always  be  regarded  as 
more  "  civilized  "  than  a  rural  population,  and  that,  in 

N 


178        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

accordance  with  that  fact,  an  urban  population  tends  to 
be  less  prolific  than  a  rural  population.  The  town  birth- 
rate is  nearly  always  lower  than  the  country  birth-rate. 
In  Germany  this  is  very  marked,  and  the  rapidly  growing 
urbanization  of  Germany  is  accompanied  by  a  great 
fall  of  the  birth-rate  in  the  large  cities,  but  not  in  the 
rural  districts.  In  England  the  fall  is  more  widespread, 
and  though  the  birth-rate  is  much  higher  in  the  country 
than  in  the  towns  the  decline  in  the  rural  birth-rate  is 
now  proceeding  more  rapidly  than  that  in  the  urban 
birth-rate.  England,  which  once  contained  a  largely 
rural  population,  now  possesses  a  mainly  urban  popula- 
tion. Every  year  it  becomes  more  urban ;  while  the 
town  population  grows,  the  rural  population  remains 
stationary ;  so  that,  at  the  present  time,  for  every 
inhabitant  of  the  country  in  England,  there  are  more 
than  three  town-dwellers.  As  the  country-dweller  is 
more  prolific  than  the  town-dweller,  this  means  that 
the  rural  population  is  constantly  being  poured  into 
the  towns.  The  larger  our  great  cities  grow,  the  more 
irresistible  becomes  the  attraction  which  they  exert  on 
the  children  of  the  country,  who  are  fascinated  by  them, 
as  the  birds  are  fascinated  by  the  lighthouse  or  the  moths 
by  the  candle.  And  the  results  are  not  altogether  unlike 
those  which  this  analogy  suggests.  At  the  present  time, 
one-third  of  the  population  of  London  is  made  up  of 
immigrants  from  the  country.  Yet,  notwithstanding 
this  immense  and  constant  stream  of  new  and  vigorous 
blood,  it  never  suffices  to  raise  the  urban  population  to 
the  same  level  of  physical  and  nervous  stability  which 


A    FALLING    BIRTH-RATE  179 

the  rural  population  possesses.  More  alert,  more  viva- 
cious, more  intelligent,  even  more  urbane  in  the  finer  sense, 
as  the  urban  population  becomes, — not  perhaps  at  first, 
but  in  the  end, — it  inevitably  loses  its  stamina,  its  reserves 
of  vital  energy.  Dr.  Cantlie  very  properly  defines  a 
Londoner  as  a  person  whose  grandparents  all  belonged 
to  London — and  he  could  not  find  any.  Dr.  Harry 
Campbell  has  found  a  few  who  could  claim  London 
grandparents  ;  they  were  poor  specimens  of  humanity.1 
Even  on  the  intellectual  side  there  are  no  great  Londoners. 
It  is  well  known  that  a  number  of  eminent  men  have 
been  born  in  London  ;  but,  in  the  course  of  a  somewhat 
elaborate  study  of  the  origins  of  British  men  of  genius,  I 
have  not  been  able  to  find  that  any  were  genuinely 
Londoners  by  descent.2  An  urban  life  saps  that  calm 
and  stolid  strength  which  is  necessary  for  all  great  effort 
and  stress,  physical  or  intellectual.  The  finest  body  of 
men  in  London,  as  a  class,  are  the  London  police,  and 
Charles  Booth  states  that  only  17  per  cent  of  the  London 
police  are  born  in  London,  a  smaller  proportion  than  any 
other  class  of  the  London  population  except  the  army 
and  navy.  As  Mr.  N.  C.  Macnamara  has  pointed  out, 
it  is  found  that  London  men  do  not  possess  the  necessary 

1  It  must  not,  however,  be  assumed  that  the  rural  immigrants 
are  in  the  mass  better  suited  to  urban  life  than  the  urban  natives. 
It  is  probable  that,  notwithstanding  their  energy  and  robustness, 
the  immigrants  are  less  suited  to  urban  conditions  than  the  natives. 
Consequently  a  process  of  selection  takes  place  among  the  immigrants, 
and  the  survivors  become,  as  it  were,  immunized  to  the  poisons  of 
urban  life.  But  this  immunization  is  by  no  means  necessarily  associated 
with  any  high  degree  of  nervous  vigour  or  general  physical  development. 

2  Havelock  Ellis,  A  Study  of  British  Genius,  pp.  22,  43. 


180        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

nervous  stability  and  self-possession  for  police  work ; 
they  are  too  excitable  and  nervous,  lacking  the  equa- 
nimity, courage,  and  self-reliance  of  the  rural  men.  Just 
in  the  same  way,  in  Spain,  the  bull-fighters,  a  body  of 
men  admirable  for  their  graceful  strength,  their  modesty, 
courage,  and  skill,  nearly  always  come  from  country 
districts,  although  it  is  in  the  towns  that  the  enthusiasm 
for  bull-fighting  is  centred.  Therefore,  it  would  appear 
that  until  urban  conditions  of  life  are  greatly  improved, 
the  more  largely  urban  a  population  becomes,  the  more 
is  its  standard  of  vital  and  physical  efficiency  likely  to 
be  lowered.  This  became  clearly  visible  during  the 
South  African  War  ;  it  was  found  at  Manchester  (as 
stated  by  Dr.  T.  P.  Smith  and  confirmed  by  Dr.  Clayton) 
that  among  11,000  young  men  who  volunteered  for 
enlistment,  scarcely  more  than  10  per  cent  could  pass 
the  surgeon's  examination,  although  the  standard  of 
physique  demanded  was  extremely  low,  while  Major- 
General  Sir  F.  Maurice  has  stated  *  that,  even  when  all 
these  rejections  have  been  made,  of  those  who  actually 
are  enlisted,  at  the  end  of  two  years  only  two  effective 
soldiers  are  found  for  every  five  who  enlist.  It  is  not 
difficult  to  see  a  bearing  of  these  facts  on  the  birth-rate. 
The  civilized  world  is  becoming  a  world  of  towns,  and, 
while  the  diminished  birth-rate  of  towns  is  certainly 
not  mainly  the  result  of  impaired  vitality,  these  pheno- 
mena are  correlative  facts  of  the  first  importance  for 

1  "  National    Health  :     a   Soldier's   Study,"    Contemporary   Review, 
January,   1903.     The  Reports  of  the  Inspector-General  of  Recruiting 
are  said  to  show  that  the  recruits  are  every  year  smaller,  lighter,  and 
narrower-chested. 


A   FALLING    BIRTH-RATE  181 

every  country  which  is  using  up  its  rural  population  and 
becoming  a  land  of  cities. 

From  our  present  point  of  view  it  is  thus  a  very  signi- 
ficant fact  that  the  equipoise  between  country-dwellers 
and  town-dwellers  has  been  lost,  that  the  towns  are 
gaining  at  the  expense  of  the  country  whose  surplus 
population  they  absorb  and  destroy.  The  town  popula- 
tion is  not  only  disinclined  to  propagate  ;  it  is  probably 
in  some  measure  unfit  to  propagate. 

At  the  same  time,  we  must  not  too  strongly  emphasize 
this  aspect  of  the  matter ;  such  over-emphasis  of  a 
single  aspect  of  highly  complex  phenomena  constantly 
distorts  our  vision  of  great  social  processes.  We  have 
already  seen  that  it  is  inaccurate  to  assert  any  con- 
nection between  a  high  birth-rate  and  a  high  degree  of 
national  prosperity,  except  in  so  far  as  at  special  periods 
in  the  history  of  a  country  a  sudden  wave  of  prosperity 
may  temporarily  remove  the  restraints  on  natural 
fertility.  Prosperity  is  only  one  of  the  causes  that  tend 
to  remove  the  restraint  on  the  birth-rate  ;  and  it  is  a 
cause  that  is  never  permanently  effective. 


in 

To  get  to  the  bottom  of  the  matter,  we  thus  find 
it  is  necessary  to  look  into  it  more  closely  than  is 
usually  attempted.  When  we  ask  ourselves  why 
prosperity  fails  permanently  to  remove  the  restraints 
on  fertility  the  answer  is,  that  it  speedily  creates 
new    restraints.      Prosperity    and    civilization    are    far 


182        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

from  being  synonymous  terms.  The  savage  who  is 
able  to  glut  himself  with  the  whale  that  has  just  been 
stranded  on  his  coast,  is  more  prosperous  than  he  was 
the  day  before,  but  he  is  not  more  civilized,  perhaps  a 
trifle  less  so.  The  working  community  that  is  suddenly 
glutted  by  an  afflux  of  work  and  wages  is  in  exactly  the 
same  position  as  the  savage  who  is  suddenly  enabled  to 
fill  himself  with  a  rich  mass  of  decaying  blubber.  It  is 
prosperity  ;  it  is  not  civilization.1  But,  while  prosperity 
leads  at  first  to  the  reckless  and  unrestrained  gratification 
of  the  simplest  animal  instincts  of  nutrition  and  repro- 
duction, it  tends,  when  it  is  prolonged,  to  evolve  more 
complex  instincts.  Aspirations  become  less  crude,  the 
needs  and  appetites  engendered  by  prosperity  take  on  a 
more  social  character,  and  are  sharpened  by  social 
rivalries.  In  place  of  the  earlier  easy  and  reckless  grati- 
fication of  animal  impulses,  a  peaceful  and  organized 
struggle  is  established  for  securing  in  ever  fuller  degree 
the  gratification  of  increasingly  insistent  and  increasingly 

1  This  has  been  well  illustrated  during  the  past  forty  years  in  the 
flourishing  county  of  Glamorgan  in  Wales,  as  is  shown  by  Dr.  R.  S. 
Stewart  ("  The  Relationship  of  Wages,  Lunacy,  and  Crime  in  South 
Wales,"  Journal  of  Mental  Science,  January,  1904).  The  staple  industry 
here  is  coal,  17  per  cent  of  the  population  being  directly  employed  in 
coal-mining,  and  wages  are  determined  by  the  sliding  scale  as  it  is 
called,  according  to  which  the  selling  price  of  coal  regulates  the  wages. 
This  leads  to  many  fluctuations  and  sudden  accesses  of  prosperity. 
It  is  found  that  whenever  wages  rise  there  is  a  concomitant  increase 
of  insanity  and  at  the  same  time  a  diminished  output  of  coal  due  to 
slacking  of  work  when  earnings  are  greater  ;  there  is  also  an  increase 
of  drunkenness  and  of  crime.  Stewart  concludes  that  it  is  doubtful 
whether  increased  material  prosperity  is  conducive  to  improvement 
in  physical  and  mental  status.  It  must,  however,  be  pointed  out 
that  it  is  a  sudden  and  unstable  prosperity,  not  necessarily  a  gradual 
and  stable  prosperity,  which  is  hereby  shown  to  be  pernicious. 


A    FALLING    BIRTH-RATE  183 

complex  desires.  Such  a  struggle  involves  a  deliberate 
calculation  and  forethought,  which,  sooner  or  later, 
cannot  fail  to  be  applied  to  the  question  of  offspring. 
Thus  it  is  that  affluence,  in  the  long  run,  itself  imposes  a 
check  on  reproduction.  Prosperity,  under  the  stress  of 
the  urban  conditions  with  which  it  tends  to  be  associated, 
has  been  transformed  into  that  calculated  forethought, 
that  deliberate  self-restraint  for  the  attainment  of  ever 
more  manifold  ends,  which  in  its  outcome  we  term 
"  civilization." 

It  is  frequently  assumed,  as  we  have  seen,  that  the 
process  by  which  civilization  is  thus  evolved  is  a  selfish 
and  immoral  process.     To  procreate  large  families,  it  is 
said,  is  unselfish  and  moral,  as  well  as  a  patriotic,  even 
a    religious    duty.      This    assumption,    we    now   find, 
is  a  little  too  hasty  and   is  even   the  reverse  of   the 
truth ;    it   is  necessary  to  take  into  consideration  the 
totality    of    the    social    phenomena    accompanying    a 
high   birth-rate,   more   especially  under   the  conditions 
of  town  life.     A  community  in  which  children  are  born 
rapidly  is  necessarily  in  an  unstable    position  ;    it   is 
growing  so  quickly  that  there  is  insufficient  time  for 
the  conditions  of  life  to  be  equalized.    The  state  of  ill- 
adjustment  is  chronic  ;   the  pressure  is  lifted  from  off  the 
natural  impulse  of  procreation,  but  is  increased  on  all 
the    conditions    under    which    the    impulse    is    exerted. 
There  is  increased  overcrowding,  increased  filth,  increased 
disease,  increased  death.    It  can  never  happen,  in  modern 
times,  that  the  readjustment  of  the  conditions  of  life 
can  be  made  to  keep  pace  with  a  high  birth-rate.    It  is 


1 84        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

sufficient  if  we  consider  the  case  of  English  towns,  of 
London  in  particular,  during  the  period  when  British 
prosperity  was  most  rapidly  increasing,  and  the  birth- 
rate nearing  its  maximum,  in  the  middle  of  the  great 
Victorian  epoch,  of  which  Englishmen  are,  for  many 
reasons,  so  proud.  It  was  certainly  not  an  age  lacking  in 
either  energy  or  philanthropy  ;  yet,  when  we  read  the 
memorable  report  which  Chad  wick  wrote  in  1842,  on  the 
Sanitary  Condition  of  the  Labouring  Population  of  Great 
Britain,  or  the  minute  study  of  Bethnal  Green  which 
Gavin  published  in  1848  as  a  type  of  the  conditions 
prevailing  in  English  towns,  we  realize  that  the  magnifi- 
cence of  this  epoch  was  built  up  over  circles  of  Hell  to 
which  the  imagination  of  Dante  never  attained. 

As  reproductive  activity  dies  down,  social  conditions 
become  more  stable,  a  comparatively  balanced  state  of 
adjustment  tends  to  be  established,  insanitary  surround- 
ings can  be  bettered,  disease  diminished,  and  the  death- 
rate  lowered.  How  much  may  thus  be  accomplished  we 
realize  when  we  compare  the  admirably  precise  and 
balanced  pages  in  which  Charles  Booth,  in  the  concluding 
volumes  of  his  great  work,  has  summarized  his  survey 
of  London,  with  the  picture  presented  by  Chadwick  and 
Gavin  half  a  century  earlier.  Ugly  and  painful  as  are  many 
of  the  features  of  this  modern  London,  the  vision  which 
is,  on  the  whole,  evoked  is  that  of  a  community  which 
has  attained  self-consciousness,  which  is  growing  into 
some  faint  degree  of  harmony  with  its  environment,  and 
is  seeking  to  gain  the  full  amount  of  the  satisfaction 
which  an  organized  urban  life  can  yield.     Booth,  who 


A    FALLING    BIRTH-RATE  185 

appears  to  have  realized  the  significance  of  a  decreased 
fertility  in  the  attainment  of  this  progress,  hopes  for  a 
still  greater  fall  in  the  birth-rate  ;  and  those  who  seek 
to  restore  the  birth-rate  of  half  a  century  ago  are  engaged 
on  a  task  which  would  be  criminal  if  it  were  not  based  on 
ignorance,  and  which  is,  in  any  case,  fatuous. 

The  whole  course  of  zoological  evolution  reveals  a 
constantly  diminishing  reproductive  activity  and  a 
constantly  increasing  expenditure  of  care  on  the  off- 
spring thus  diminished  in  number.1  Fish  spawn  their 
ova  by  the  million,  and  it  is  a  happy  chance  if  they 
become  fertilized,  a  highly  unlikely  chance  that  more 
than  a  very  small  proportion  will  ever  attain  maturity. 
Among  the  mammals,  however,  the  female  may  produce 
but  half  a  dozen  or  fewer  offspring  at  a  time,  but  she 

1  The  relationship  is  sometimes  expressed  by  saying  that  the 
more  highly  differentiated  the  organism  the  fewer  the  offspring. 
According  to  Plate  we  ought  to  say  that,  the  greater  the  capacity 
for  parental  care  the  fewer  the  offspring.  This,  however,  comes 
to  the  same  thing,  since  it  is  the  higher  organisms  which  possess 
the  increased  capacity  for  parental  care.  Putting  it  in  the  most 
generalized  zoological  way,  diminished  offspring  is  the  response 
to  improved  environment.  Thus  in  Man  the  decline  of  the  birth- 
rate, as  Professor  Benjamin  Moore  remarks  (British  Medical  Journal, 
August  20,  1910,  p.  454),  is  "  the  simple  biological  reply  to  good 
economic  conditions.  It  is  a  well-known  biological  law  that  even  a 
micro-organism,  when  placed  in  unfavourable  conditions  as  to  food  and 
environment,  passes  into  a  reproductive  phase,  and  by  sporulation 
or  some  special  type  produces  new  individuals  very  rapidly.  The  same 
condition  of  affairs  in  the  human  race  was  shown  even  by  the  fact  that 
one-half  of  the  births  come  from  the  least  favourably  situated  one- 
quarter  of  the  population.  Hence,  over-rapid  birth-rate  indicates 
unfavourable  conditions  of  life,  so  that  (so  long  as  the  population  was 
on  the  increase)  a  lower  birth-rate  was  a  valuable  indication  of  a  better 
social  condition  of  affairs,  and  a  matter  on  which  we  should  congratulate 
the  country  rather  than  proceed  to  condolences." 


186        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

lavishes  so  much  care  upon  them  that  they  have  a  very 
fair  chance  of  all  reaching  maturity.  In  man,  in  so  far 
as  he  refrains  from  returning  to  the  beast  and  is  true  to 
the  impulse  which  in  him  becomes  a  conscious  process 
of  civilization,  the  same  movement  is  carried  forward. 
He  even  seeks  to  decrease  still  further  the  number  of 
his  offspring  by  voluntary  effort,  and  at  the  same  time 
to  increase  their  quality  and  magnify  their  importance.1 

When  in  human  families,  especially  under  civilized 
conditions,  we  see  large  families  we  are  in  the  presence 
of  a  reversion  to  the  tendencies  that  prevail  among  lower 
organisms.  Such  large  families  may  probably  be  regarded, 
as  Nacke  suggests,  as  constituting  a  symptom  of  de- 
generation. It  is  noteworthy  that  they  usually  occur  in 
the  pathological  and  abnormal  classes,  among  the 
insane,  the  feeble-minded,  the  criminal,  the  consumptive, 
the  alcoholic,  etc.2 

This  tendency  of  the  birth-rate  to  fall  with  the  growth 
of  social  stability  is  thus  a  tendency  which  is  of  the 
very  essence  of  civilization.  It  represents  an  impulse 
which,  however  deliberate  it  may  be  in  the  individual, 
may,  in  the  community,  be  looked  upon  as  an  instinctive 
effort  to  gain  more  complete  control  of  the  conditions  of 

1  "  The  accumulations  of  racial  experience  tend  to  show,"  remarks 
Woods  Hutchinson  ("  Animal  Marriage,"  Contemporary  Review, 
October,  1904),  "  that  by  the  production  of  a  smaller  and  smaller 
number  of  offspring,  and  the  expenditure  upon  those  of  a  greater 
amount  of  parental  care,  better  results  can  be  obtained  in  efficiency 
and  capacity  for  survival." 

2  Toulouse,  Causes  de  la  Folic,  p.  91  ;  Magri,  Archivio  di  Psichiatria, 
1896,  fasc.ivi-vii  ;   Havelock  Ellis,  A  Study  of  British  Genius,  pp.  106 

et  seq. 


A    FALLING    BIRTH-RATE  187 

life,  and  to  grapple  more  efficiently  with  the  problems 
of  misery  and  disease  and  death.  It  is  not  only,  as  is 
sometimes  supposed,  during  the  past  century  that  the 
phenomena  may  be  studied.  We  have  a  remarkable 
example  some  centuries  earlier,  an  example  which  very 
clearly  illustrates  the  real  nature  of  the  phenomena. 
The  city  of  Geneva,  perhaps  first  of  European  cities, 
began  to  register  its  births,  deaths,  and  marriages  from 
the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century.  This  alone  indicates 
a  high  degree  of  civilization  ;  and  at  that  time,  and  for 
some  succeeding  centuries,  Geneva  was  undoubtedly  a 
very  highly  civilized  city.  Its  inhabitants  really  were 
the  "  elect,"  morally  and  intellectually,  of  French 
Protestantism.  In  many  respects  it  was  a  model  city, 
as  Gray  noted  when  he  reached  it  in  the  course  of  his 
travels  in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century.  These 
registers  of  Geneva  show,  in  a  most  illuminating  manner, 
how  extreme  fertility  at  the  outset,  gradually  gave 
place,  as  civilization  progressed,  to  a  very  low  fertility, 
with  fewer  and  later  marriages,  a  very  low  death-rate, 
and  a  state  of  general  well-being  in  which  the  births 
barely  replaced  the  deaths. 

After  Protestant  Geneva  had  lost  her  pioneering  place 
in  civilization,  it  was  in  France,  the  land  which  above 
all  others  may  in  modern  times  claim  to  represent  the 
social  aspects  of  civilization,  that  the  same  tendency 
most  conspicuously  appeared.  But  all  Europe,  as  well 
as  all  the  English-speaking  lands  outside  Europe,  is  now 
following  the  lead  of  France.  In  a  paper  read  before 
the   Paris   Society   of   Anthropology   a   few   years '  ago, 


188        THE   TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

Emile  Macquart  showed  clearly,  by  a  series  of  ingenious 
diagrams,  that  whereas,  fifty  years  ago,  the  condition 
of  the  birth-rate  in  France  diverged  widely  from  that 
prevailing  in  the  other  chief  countries  of  Europe,  the 
other  countries  are  now  rapidly  following  in  the  same 
road  along  which  France  has  for  a  century  been  pro- 
ceeding slowly,  and  are  constantly  coming  closer  to  her, 
England  closest  of  all.  In  the  past,  proposals  have  from 
time  to  time  been  made  in  France  to  interfere  with  the 
progress  of  this  downward  movement  of  the  birth-rate- 
proposals  that  were  sufficiently  foolish,  for  neither  in 
France  nor  elsewhere  will  the  individual  allow  the  statis- 
tician to  interfere  officiously  in  a  matter  which  he  regards 
as  purely  intimate  and  private.  But  the  real  character 
of  this  tendency  of  the  birth-rate,  as  an  essential  pheno- 
menon of  civilization,  with  which  neither  moralist  nor 
politician  can  successfully  hope  to  interfere,  is  beginning 
to  be  realized  in  France.  Azoulay,  in  summing  up  the 
discussion  after  Macquart 's  paper1  had  been  read  at 
the  Society  of  Anthropology,  pointed  out  that  "  nations 
must  inevitably  follow  the  same  course  as  social  classes, 
and  the  more  the  mass  of  these  social  classes  becomes 
civilized,  the  more  the  nation's  birth-rate  falls  ;  therefore 
there  is  nothing  to  be  done  legally  and  administratively." 
And  another  member  added  :    "  Except  to  applaud." 

It  is  probably  too  much  to  hope  that  so  sagacious  a 
view  will  at  once  be  universally  adopted.  The  United 
States  and  the  great  English  colonies,  for  instance,  find 

1  Emile  Macquart,  '*  Mortalite,  Natalite,  Depopulation,"  Bulletin 
de  la  Societe  d'Anthvopologie,  1902. 


A    FALLING    BIRTH-RATE  189 

it  difficult  to  realize  that  they  are  not  really  new  countries, 
but  branches  of  old  countries,  and  already  nearing 
maturity  when  they  began  their  separate  lives.  They 
are  not  at  the  beginning  of  two  thousand  years  of  slow 
development,  such  as  we  have  passed  through,  but  at 
the  end  of  it,  with  us,  and  sometimes  even  a  little  ahead 
of  us.  It  is  therefore  natural  and  inevitable  that,  in  a 
matter  in  which  we  are  moving  rapidly,  Massachusetts 
and  Ontario  and  New  South  Wales  and  New  Zealand 
should  have  moved  still  more  rapidly,  so  rapidly  indeed, 
that  they  have  themselves  failed  to  perceive  that  their 
real  natural  increase  and  the  manner  in  which  it  is 
attained  place  them  in  this  matter  at  the  van  of  civiliza- 
tion. These  things  are,  however,  only  learnt  slowly.  We 
may  be  sure  that  the  fundamental  and  complex  character 
of  the  phenomena  will  never  be  obvious  to  our  fussy 
little  politicians,  so  apt  to  advocate  panaceas  which 
have  effects  quite  opposite  to  those  they  desire.  But, 
whatever  politicians  may  wish  to  do  or  to  leave  undone, 
it  is  well  to  remember  that,  of  the  various  ideals  the 
world  holds,  there  are  some  that  lie  on  the  path  of  our 
social  progress,  and  others  that  do  not  there  lie.  We  may 
properly  exercise  such  wisdom  as  we  possess  by  utilizing 
the  ideals  which  are  before  us,  serenely  neglecting  many 
others  which,  however  precious  they  may  once  have 
seemed,  no  longer  form  part  of  the  stage  of  civilization 
we  are  now  moving  towards. 


igo        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

IV 

What  are  the  ideals  of  the  stage  of  civilization  we  of 
the  Western  world  are  now  moving  towards  ?  We  have 
here  pushed  as  far  as  need  be  the  analysis  of  that  de- 
clining birth-rate  which  has  caused  so  much  anxiety  to 
those  amongst  us  who  can  only  see  narrowly  and  see 
superficially.  We  have  found  that,  properly  understood, 
there  is  nothing  in  it  to  evoke  our  pessimism.  On  the 
contrary,  we  have  seen  that,  in  the  opinion  of  the  most 
distinguished  authorities,  the  energy  with  which  we 
move  in  our  present  direction,  through  the  exercise  of  an 
ever  finer  economy  in  life,  may  be  regarded  as  a  "  measure 
of  civilization  "  in  the  important  sphere  of  vital  statistics. 
As  we  now  leave  the  question,  some  may  ask  themselves 
whether  this  concomitant  decline  in  birth-rates  and 
death-rates  may  not  possibly  have  a  still  wider  and  more 
fundamental  meaning  as  a  measure  of  civilization. 

We  have  long  been  accustomed  to  regard  the  East  as  a 
spiritual  world  in  which  the  finer  ends  of  living  were 
counted  supreme,  and  the  merely  materialistic  aspects 
of  life,  dissociated  from  the  aims  of  religion  and  of  art, 
were  trodden  under  foot.  Our  own  Western  world  we 
have  humbly  regarded  as  mainly  absorbed  in  a  feverish 
race  for  the  attainment,  by  industry  and  war,  of  the 
satisfaction  of  the  impulses  of  reproduction  and  nutrition, 
and  the  crudely  material  aggrandizement  of  which  those 
impulses  are  the  symbol.  A  certain  outward  idleness, 
a  semi-idleness,  as  Nietzsche  said,  is  the  necessary  con- 
dition for  a  real  religious  life,  for  a  real  aesthetic  life,  for 


A    FALLING    BIRTH-RATE  191 

any  life  on  the  spiritual  plane.  The  noisy,  laborious, 
pushing,  "  progressive  "  life  we  traditionally  associate 
with  the  West  is  essentially  alien  to  the  higher  ends  of 
living,  as  has  been  intuitively  recognized  and  acted  on 
by  all  those  among  us  who  have  sought  to  pursue  the 
higher  ends  of  living.  It  was  so  that  the  nineteenth- 
century  philosophers  of  Europe,  of  whom  Schopenhauer 
was  in  this  matter  the  extreme  type,  viewed  the  matter. 
But  when  we  seek  to  measure  the  tendency  of  the  chief 
countries  of  the  West,  led  by  France,  England,  and 
Germany,  and  the  countries  of  the  East  led  by  Japan, 
in  the  light  of  this  strictly  measurable  test  of  vital 
statistics,  may  we  not,  perhaps,  trace  the  approach  of  a 
revolutionary  transposition  ?  Japan,  entering  on  the 
road  we  have  nearly  passed  through,  in  which  the  per- 
petual clash  of  a  high  birth-rate  and  a  high  death-rate 
involves  social  disorder  and  misery,  has  flung  to  the 
winds  the  loftier  ideals  it  once  pursued  so  successfully 
and  has  lost  its  fine  aesthetic  perceptions,  its  insight  into 
the  most  delicate  secrets  of  the  soul.1  And  while  Japan, 
certainly  to-day  voicing  the  aspirations  of  the  East,  is 
concerned  to  become  a  great  military  and  industrial 
power,  we  in  the  West  are  growing  weary  of  war,  and 
are  coming  to  look  upon  commerce  as  a  necessary  routine 

1  It  is  interesting  to  observe  how  Lafcadio  Hearn,  during  the  last 
years  of  his  life,  was  compelled,  however  unwillingly,  to  recognize 
this  change.  See  e.g.  his  Japan:  An  Attempt  at  Interpretation,  1904, 
ch.  xxi,  on  "Industrial  Dangers."  The  Japanese  themselves  have 
recognized  it,  and  it  is  the  feeling  of  the  decay  of  their  ancient  ideals 
which  has  given  so  great  an  impetus  to  new  ethical  movements,  such  as 
that,  described  as  a  kind  of  elevated  materialism,  established  by 
Yukichi  Fukuzawa  (see  Open  Court,  June,  1907). 


192        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

no  longer  adequate  to  satisfy  the  best  energies  of  human 
beings.  We  are  here  moving  towards  the  fine  quiescence 
involved  by  a  delicate  equipoise  of  life  and  of  death  ; 
and  this  economy  sets  free  an  energy  we  are  seeking  to 
expend  in  a  juster  social  organization,  and  in  the  realiza- 
tion of  ideals  which  until  now  have  seemed  but  the 
imagination  of  idle  dreamers.  Asia,  as  an  anonymous 
writer  has  recently  put  it,  is  growing  crude,  vulgar,  and 
materialistic  ;  Europe,  on  the  other  hand,  is  growing  to 
loathe  its  own  past  grossness.  "  London  may  yet  be 
the  spiritual  capital  of  the  world,  while  Asia — rich  in  all 
that  gold  can  buy  and  guns  can  give,  lord  of  lands  and 
bodies,  builder  of  railways  and  promulgator  of  police 
regulations,  glorious  in  all  material  glories — postures, 
complacent  and  obtuse,  before  a  Europe  content  in  the 
possession  of  all  that  matters."  x  Certainly,  we  are  not 
there  yet,  but  the  old  Earth  has  seen  many  stranger  and 
more  revolutionary  changes  than  this.  England,  as 
this  writer  reminds  us,  was  once  a  tropical  forest. 

1  Athenceum,  October  7,  191 1. 


VI 
EUGENICS    AND    LOVE 

Eugenics  and  the  Decline  of  the  Birth-rate — Quantity  and  Quality 
in  the  Production  of  Children — Eugenic  Sexual  Selection — The 
Value  of  Pedigrees — Their  Scientific  Significance — The  Systematic 
Record  of  Personal  Data — The  Proposal  for  Eugenic  Certificates — 
St.  Valentine's  Day  and  Sexual  Selection — Love  and  Reason — Love 
Ruled  by  Natural  Law — Eugenic  Selection  not  opposed  to  Love — 
No  Need  for  Legal  Compulsion — Medicine  in  Relation  to  Marriage 


DURING  recent  years  the  question  of  the  future 
of  the  human  race  has  been  brought  before  us 
in  a  way  it  has  never  been  brought  before.  The 
great  expansive  movement  in  civilized  countries  is  over. 
Whereas,  fifty  years  ago,  France  seemed  to  present  a 
striking  contrast  to  other  countries  in  her  low  and 
gradually  falling  birth-rate,  to-day,  though  she  has 
herself  now  almost  reached  a  stationary  position,  France 
is  seen  merely  to  have  been  the  leader  in  a  movement 
which  is  common  to  all  the  more  highly  civilized  nations. 
They  are  all  now  moving  rapidly  in  the  direction  in 
which  she  moved  slowly.  It  was  inevitable  that  this 
movement,  world-wide  as  it  is,  should  call  forth  energetic 
protests,  for  there  is  no  condition  of  things  so  bad  but  it 
finds  some  to  advocate  its  perpetuation.  There  has, 
therefore,  been  much  vigorous  preaching  against  "  race 
o  193 


i94        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

suicide  "  by  people  who  were  deaf  to  the  small  voice  of 
reason,  who  failed  to  understand  that  this  matter  could 
not  be  settled  by  mere  consideration  of  the  crude  birth- 
rates, and  that,  even  if  it  could,  we  should  have  still  to 
realize  that,  as  an  economist  remarks,  it  is  to  the  decline  of 
the  birth-rate  only  that  we  probably  owe  it  that  the  modern 
civilized  world  has  been  saved  from  economic  disaster.1 

But  whatever  the  causes  of  the  declining  birth-rate  it 
is  certain  that  even  when  they  are  within  our  control 
they  are  of  far  too  intimate  a  character  for  the  public 
moralist  to  be  permitted  to  touch  them,  even  though  we 
consider  them  to  be  in  a  disastrous  state.  It  has  to  be 
recognized  that  we  are  here  in  the  presence,  not  of  a 
merely  local  or  temporary  tendency  which  might  be 
shaken  off  with  an  effort,  but  of  a  great  fundamental 
law  of  civilization  ;  and  the  fact  that  we  encounter  it  in 
our  own  race  merely  means  that  we  are  reaching  a  fairly 
high  stage  of  civilization.  It  is  far  from  the  first  time, 
in  the  history  of  the  world,  that  the  same  phenomenon 
has  been  witnessed.  It  was  seen  in  Imperial  Rome  ;  it 
was  seen,  again,  in  the  "  Protestant  Rome,"  Geneva. 
Wherever  are  gathered  together  an  exceedingly  fine  race 
of  people,  the  flower  of  the  race,  individuals  of  the  highest 
mental  and  moral  distinction,  there  the  birth-rate  falls 
steadily.  Vice  or  virtue  alike  avails  nothing  in  this  field ; 
with  high  civilization  fertility  inevitably  diminishes. 

1  Dr.  Scott  Nearing,  "  Race  Suicide  versus  Over-Population," 
Popular  Science  Monthly,  January,  191 1.  And  from  the  biological  side 
Professor  Bateson  concludes  (Biological  Fact  and  the  Structure  of  Society, 
p.  23)  that  "it  is  in  a  decline  in  the  birth-rate  that  the  most  promising 
omen  exists  for  the  happiness  of  future  generations." 


EUGENICS   AND    LOVE  195 

11 

Under  these  circumstances  it  was  to  be  expected  that 
a  new  ideal  should  begin  to  flash  before  men's  eyes.  If 
the  ideal  of  quantity  is  lost  to  us,  why  not  seek  the  ideal 
of  quality?  We  know  that  the  old  rule:  "  Increase  and 
multiply "  meant  a  vast  amount  of  infant  mortality, 
of  starvation,  of  chronic  disease,  of  widespread  misery. 
In  abandoning  that  rule,  as  we  have  been  forced  to  do, 
are  we  not  left  free  to  seek  that  our  children,  though  few, 
should  be  at  all  events  fit,  the  finest,  alike  in  physical  and 
psychical  constitution,  that  the  world  has  seen  ? 

Thus  has  come  about  the  recent  expansion  of  that 
conception  of  Eugenics,  or  the  science  and  art  of  Good 
Breeding  in  the  human  race,  which  a  group  of  workers, 
pioneered  by  Francis  Galton1 — at  first  in  England  and 
later  in  America,  Germany  and  elsewhere — have  been 
developing  for  some  years  past.  Eugenics  is  beginning 
to  be  felt  to  possess  a  living  actuality  which  it  failed  to 

1  Galton  himself,  the  grandson  of  Erasmus  Darwin,  and  the  half- 
cousin  of  Charles  Darwin,  may  be  said  to  furnish  a  noble  illustration 
of  an  unconscious  process  of  eugenics.  (He  has  set  forth  his  ancestry 
in  Memories  of  My  Life.)  On  his  death,  the  editor  of  the  Popular 
Science  Monthly  wrote,  referring  to  the  fact  that  Galton  was  nominated 
to  succeed  William  James  in  the  honorary  membership  of  an  Academy 
of  Science  :  "  These  two  men  are  the  greatest  whom  he  has  known. 
James  possessed  the  more  complicated  personality  ;  but  they  had 
certain  common  traits — a  combination  of  perfect  aristocracy  with 
complete  democracy,  directness,  kindliness,  generosity,  and  nobility 
beyond  all  measure.  It  has  been  said  that  eugenics  is  futile  because  it 
cannot  define  its  end.  The  answer  is  simple — we  want  men  like  William 
James  and  Francis  Galton  "  {Popular  Science  Monthly,  March,  191 1) 
Probably  most  of  those  who  were  brought,  however  slightly,  in  contact 
with  these  two  line  personalities  will  subscribe  to  this  conclusion. 


196        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

possess  before.  Instead  of  being  a  benevolent  scientific 
fad  it  begins  to  present  itself  as  the  goal  to  which  we  are 
inevitably  moving. 

The  cause  of  Eugenics  has  sometimes  been  prejudiced 
in  the  public  mind  by  a  comparison  with  the  artificial 
breeding  of  domestic  animals.  In  reality  the  two  things 
are  altogether  different.  In  breeding  animals  a  higher 
race  of  beings  manipulates  a  lower  race  with  the  object 
of  securing  definite  points  that  are  of  no  use  whatever 
to  the  animals  themselves,  but  of  considerable  value  to 
the  breeders.  In  our  own  race,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
problem  of  breeding  is  presented  in  an  entirely  different 
shape.  There  is  as  yet  no  race  of  super-men  who  are 
prepared  to  breed  man  for  their  own  special  ends.  As 
things  are,  even  if  we  had  the  ability  and  the  power,  we 
should  surely  hesitate  before  we  bred  men  and  women 
as  we  breed  dogs  or  fowls.  We  may,  therefore,  quite  put 
aside  all  discussion  of  eugenics  as  a  sort  of  higher  cattle- 
breeding.  It  would  be  undesirable,  even  if  it  were  not 
impracticable. 

But  there  is  another  aspect  of  Eugenics.  Human 
eugenics  need  not  be,  and  is  not  likely  to  be,  a  cold- 
blooded selection  of  partners  by  some  outside  scientific 
authority.  But  it  may  be,  and  is  very  likely  to  be,  a 
slowly  growing  conviction — first  among  the  more  in- 
telligent members  of  the  community  and  then  by  imi- 
tation and  fashion  among  the  less  intelligent  members 
— that  our  children,  the  future  race,  the  torch-bearers  of 
civilization  for  succeeding  ages,  are  not  the  mere  result 
of  chance  or  Providence,  but  that,  in  a  very  real  sense, 


EUGENICS  AND    LOVE  197 

it  is  within  our  power  to  mould  them,  that  the  salvation 
or  damnation  of  many  future  generations  lies  in  our 
hands  since  it  depends  on  our  wise  and  sane  choice  of  a 
mate.  The  results  of  the  breeding  of  those  persons  who 
ought  never  to  be  parents  is  well  known  ;  the  notorious 
case  of  the  Jukes  family  is  but  one  among  many  instances. 
We  could  scarcely  expect  in  any  community  that  in- 
dividuals like  the  Jukes  would  take  the  initiative  in 
movements  for  the  eugenic  development  of  the  race, 
but  it  makes  much  difference  whether  such  families 
exist  in  an  environment  like  our  own  which  is  indifferent 
to  the  future  of  the  race,  or  whether  they  are  surrounded 
by  influences  of  a  more  wholesome  character  which  can 
scarcely  fail  to  some  extent  to  affect,  and  even  to  control, 
the  reckless  and  anti-social  elements  in  the  community. 
In  considering  this  question,  therefore,  we  are  justified 
in  putting  aside  not  only  any  kind  of  human  breeding 
resembling  the  artificial  breeding  of  animals,  but  also, 
at  all  events  for  the  present,  every  compulsory  pro- 
hibition on  marriage  or  procreation.  We  must  be 
content  to  concern  ourselves  with  ideals,  and  with  the 
endeavour  to  exert  our  personal  influence  in  the  realiza- 
tion of  these  ideals. 

in 

Such  ideals  cannot,  however,  be  left  in  the  air  ;  if 
they  depend  on  individual  caprice  nothing  but  fruitless 
confusion  can  come  of  them.  They  must  be  firmly 
grounded  on  a  scientific  basis  of  ascertained  fact.  This 
was  always  emphasized  by  Galton.    He  not  only  initiated 


198        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

schemes  for  obtaining,  but  actually  to  some  extent 
obtained,  a  large  amount  of  scientific  knowledge  con- 
cerning the  special  characteristics  and  aptitudes  of 
families,  and  his  efforts  in  this  direction  have  since  been 
largely  extended  and  elaborated.1  The  feverish  activi- 
ties of  modern  life,  and  the  constant  vicissitudes  and 
accidents  that  overtake  families  to-day,  have  led  to  an 
extraordinary  indifference  to  family  history  and  tradition. 
Our  forefathers,  from  generation  to  generation,  care- 
fully entered  births,  baptisms,  marriages,  and  deaths  in 
the  fly-leaf  of  the  Family  Bible.  It  is  largely  owing  to 
these  precious  entries  that  many  are  able  to  carry  their 
family  history  several  centuries  further  back  than  they 
otherwise  could.  But  nowadays  the  Family  Bible  has 
for  the  most  part  ceased  to  exist,  and  nothing  else  has 
taken  its  place.  If  a  man  wishes  to  know  what  sort  of 
stocks  he  has  come  from,  unless  he  is  himself  an  anti- 
quarian, or  in  a  position  to  employ  an  antiquarian  to 
assist  him,  he  can  learn  little,  and  in  the  most  favourable 
position  he  is  helpless  without  clues  ;  though  with  such 
clues  he  might  often  learn  much  that  would  be  of  the 
greatest  interest  to  him.  The  entries  in  the  Family 
Bible,  however,  whatever  their  value  as  clues  and  even 

1  Galton  chiefly  studied  the  families  to  which  men  of  intellectual 
ability  belong,  especially  in  his  Hereditary  Genius  and  English  Men  of 
Science  ;  various  kinds  of  pathological  families  have  since  been  in- 
vestigated by  Karl  Pearson  and  his  co-workers  (see  the  series  of 
Biometrika)  ;  the  pedigrees  of  the  defective  classes  (especially  the 
feeble-minded  and  epileptic)  are  now  being  accurately  worked  out, 
as  by  Godden,  at  Vineland,  New  Jersey,  and  Davenport,  in  New  York 
(see  e.g.  Eugenics  Review,  April,  ign,  and  Journal  of  Nervous  and 
Mental  Disease,  November,  1911). 


EUGENICS   AND    LOVE  199 

as  actual  data,  do  not  furnish  adequate  information  to 
serve  as  a  guide  to  the  different  qualities  of  stocks  ;  we 
need  far  more  detailed  and  varied  information  in  order 
to  realize  the  respective  values  of  families  from  the  point 
of  view  of  eugenics.  Here,  again,  Galton  had  already 
realized  the  need  for  supplying  a  great  defect  in  our 
knowledge,  and  his  Life-history  Albums  showed  how  the 
necessary  information  may  be  conveniently  registered. 

The  accumulated  histories  of  individual  families,  it  is 
evident,  will  in  time  furnish  a  foundation  on  which  to 
base  scientific  generalizations,  and  eventually,  perhaps, 
to  justify  practical  action.  Moreover,  a  vast  amount  of 
valuable  information  on  which  it  is  possible  to  build  up 
a  knowledge  of  the  correlated  characteristics  of  families, 
already  lies  at  present  unused  in  the  great  insurance 
offices  and  elsewhere.  When  it  is  possible  to  obtain  a 
large  collection  of  accurate  pedigrees  for  scientific  pur- 
poses, and  to  throw  them  into  a  properly  tabulated 
form,  we  shall  certainly  be  in  a  position  to  know  more  of 
the  qualities  of  stocks,  of  their  good  and  bad  character- 
istics, and  of  the  degree  in  which  they  are  correlated.1 

In  this  way  we  shall,  in  time,  be  able  to  obtain  a  clear 

1  "  When  once  more  the  importance  of  good  birth  comes  to  be 
recognized  in  a  new  sense,"  wrote  W.  C.  D.  Whetham  and  Mrs.  Whetham 
(in  The  Family  and  the  Nation,  p.  222),  "  when  the  innate  physical  and 
mental  qualities  of  different  families  are  recorded  in  the  central 
sociological  department  or  scientifically  reformed  College  of  Arms, 
the  pedigrees  of  all  will  be  known  to  be  of  supreme  interest.  It  would 
be  understood  to  be  more  important  to  marry  into  a  family  with  a 
good  hereditary  record  of  physical  and  mental  and  moral  qualities 
than  it  ever  has  been  considered  to  be  allied  to  one  with  sixteen 
quarterings." 


200        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

picture  of  the  probable  results  on  the  offspring  of  unions 
between  any  kind  of  people.  From  personal  and  an- 
cestral data  we  shall  be  able  to  reckon  the  probable 
quality  of  the  offspring  of  a  married  couple.  Given  a 
man  and  woman  of  known  personal  qualities  and  of 
known  ancestors,  what  are  likely  to  be  the  personal 
qualities,  physical,  mental  and  moral,  of  the  children  ? 
That  is  a  question  of  immense  importance  both  for  the 
beings  themselves  whom  we  bring  into  the  world,  for  the 
community  generally,  and  for  the  future  race. 

Eventually,  it  seems  evident,  a  general  system,  whether 
private  or  public,  whereby  all  personal  facts,  biological 
and  mental,  normal  and  morbid,  are  duly  and  systemati- 
cally registered,  must  become  inevitable  if  we  are  to  have 
a  real  guide  as  to  those  persons  who  are  most  fit,  or  most 
unfit,  to  carry  on  the  race.1  Unless  they  are  full  and 
frank  such  records  are  useless.  But  it  is  obvious  that 
for  a  long  time  to  come  such  a  system  of  registration 
must  be  private.  According  to  the  belief  which  is  still 
deeply  rooted  in  most  of  us,  we  regard  as  most  private 
those  facts  of  our  lives  which  are  most  intimately  con- 
nected with  the  life  of  the  race,  and  most  fateful  for  the 
future  of  humanity.  The  feeling  is  no  doubt  inevitable, 
it  has  a  certain  Tightness  and  justification.  As,  how- 
ever, our  knowledge  increases  we  shall  learn  that  we  are, 
on  the  one  hand,  a  little  more  responsible  for  future 
generations  than  we  are  accustomed  to  think,  and,  on 

1  The  importance  of  such  biographical  records  of  aptitude  and 
character  are  so  great  that  some,  like  Schallmayer  (Vererbung  und 
Auslcse,  2nd  ed.,  1910,  p.  389)  believe  that  they  must  be  made  uni- 
versally obligatory.     This  proposal,  however,  seems  premature. 


EUGENICS   AND   LOVE  201 

the  other  hand,  a  little  less  responsible  for  our  own  good 
or  bad  qualities.  Our  fiat  makes  the  future  man,  but, 
in  the  same  way,  we  are  ourselves  made  by  a  choice  and 
a  will  not  our  own.  A  man  may  indeed,  within  limits, 
mould  himself,  but  the  materials  he  can  alone  use  were 
handed  on  to  him  by  his  parents,  and  whether  he  be- 
comes a  man  of  genius,  a  criminal,  a  drunkard,  an 
epileptic,  or  an  ordinarily  healthy,  well-conducted,  and 
intelligent  citizen,  must  depend  at  least  as  much  on  his 
parents  as  on  his  own  effort  or  lack  of  effort,  since  even 
the  aptitude  for  effective  effort  is  largely  inborn.  As  we 
learn  to  look  on  the  facts  from  the  only  sound  stand- 
point of  heredity,  our  anger  or  contempt  for  a  failing  and 
erring  individual  has  to  give  way  to  the  kindly  but  firm 
control  of  a  weakling.  If  the  children's  teeth  have  been 
set  on  edge  it  is  because  the  parents  have  eaten  sour 
grapes. 

If,  however,  we  certainly  cannot  bring  legal  or  even 
moral  force  to  compel  everyone  to  maintain  such  detailed 
registers  of  himself,  his  ancestral  stocks,  and  his  off- 
spring— to  say  nothing  of  inducing  him  to  make  them 
public — there  is  something  that  we  can  do.  We  can 
make  it  to  his  interest  to  keep  such  a  record.1     If  it 

1  In  many  undesigned  and  unforeseen  ways  these  registers  may  be 
of  immense  value.  They  may  even  prove  the  means  of  overthrowing 
our  pernicious  and  destructive  system  of  so-called  "  education."  A  step 
in  this  direction  has  been  suggested  by  Mr.  R.  T.  Bodey,  Inspector 
of  Elementary  Schools,  at  a  meeting  of  the  Liverpool  branch  of  the 
Eugenics  Education  Society  :  "  Education  facilities  should  be  carefully 
distributed  with  regard  to  the  scientific  likelihood  of  their  utilization  to 
the  maximum  of  national  advantage,  and  this  not  for  economic  reasons 
only,  but  because  it  was  cruel  to  drag  children  from  their  own  to  a 
different  sphere  of  life,  and  cruel  to  the  class  they  deserted.    Since  the 


202        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

became  an  advantage  in  life  to  a  man  to  possess  good 
ancestors,  and  to  be  himself  a  good  specimen  of  humanity 
in  mind,  character,  and  physique,  we  may  be  sure  that 
those  who  are  above  the  average  in  these  matters  will  be 
glad  to  make  use  of  that  superiority.  Insurance  offices 
already  make  an  inquisition  into  these  matters,  to  which 
no  one  objects,  because  a  man  only  submits  to  it  for  his 
own  advantage ;  while  for  military  and  some  other 
services  similar  inquiries  are  compulsory.  Eugenic 
certificates,  according  to  Galton's  proposal,  would  be 
issued  by  a  suitably  constituted  authority  to  those 
candidates  who  chose  to  apply  for  them  and  were  able 
to  pass  the  necessary  tests.  Such  certificates  would 
imply  an  inquiry  and  examination  into  the  ancestry  of 
the  candidate  as  well  as  into  his  own  constitution, 
health,  intelligence  and  character  ;  and  the  possession 
of  such  a  certificate  would  involve  a  superiority  to  the 
average  in  all  these  respects.  No  one  would  be  com- 
pelled to  offer  himself  for  such  examination,  just  as  no 

activities  of  the  nation  and  the  powers  of  the  children  were  alike 
varied  in  kind  and  degree,  the  most  natural  plan  would  be  to  sort 
them  both  out,  and  then  design  a  school  system  expressly  in  order  to 
fit  one  to  the  other.  At  present  there  was  no  fixed  purpose,  but  a  per- 
petual riot  of  changes,  resulting  in  distraction  of  mind,  discontinuity 
of  purpose,  and  increase  of  cost,  while  happiness  decayed  because 
desires  grew  faster  than  possessions  or  the  sense  of  achievement.  The 
only  really  scientific  basis  for  a  national  system  of  education  would  be 
a  full  knowledge  of  the  family  history  of  each  child.  With  more  perfect 
classification  of  family  talent  the  need  of  scholarships  of  transplantation 
would  become  less,  for  each  of  them  was  the  confession  of  an  initial  error 
in  placing  the  child.  Then  there  would  be  more  money  to  be  spared 
for  industrial  research,  travelling  and  art  studentships,  and  other  aids 
to  those  who  had  the  rare  gift  of  original  thought  "  {British  Medical 
Journal,  November  18,  1911). 


EUGENICS   AND   LOVE  203 

one  is  compelled  to  seek  a  university  degree.  But  its 
possession  would  often  be  an  advantage.  There  is 
nothing  to  prevent  the  establishment  of  a  board  of 
examiners  of  this  kind  to-morrow,  and  we  may  be  sure 
that,  once  established,  many  candidates  would  hasten 
to  present  themselves.1  There  are  obviously  many 
positions  in  life  wherein  a  certificate  of  this  kind  of 
superiority  would  be  helpful.  But  its  chief  distinction 
would  be  that  its  possession  would  be  a  kind  of  patent  of 
natural  nobility  ;  the  man  or  woman  who  held  it  would 
be  one  of  Nature's  aristocrats,  to  whom  the  future  of  the 
race  might  be  safely  left  without  further  question. 

IV 

By  happy  inspiration,  or  by  chance,  Galton  made 
public  his  programme  of  eugenic  research,  in  a  paper 
read  before  the  Sociological  Society,  on  February  14, 
the   festival   of   St.    Valentine.      Although   the   ancient 

1  I  should  add  that  there  is  one  obstacle,  viz.  expense.  When  the  pre- 
sent chapter  was  first  published  in  its  preliminary  form  as  an  article  in 
the  Nineteenth  Century  and  After  (May,  1906),  Galton,  always  alive  to 
everything  bearing  on  the  study  of  Eugenics,  wrote  to  me  that  he  had 
been  impressed  by  the  generally  sympathetic  reception  my  paper  had 
received,  and  that  he  felt  encouraged  to  consider  whether  it  was 
possible  to  begin  giving  such  certificates  at  once.  He  asked  for  my 
views,  among  others,  as  to  the  ground  which  should  be  covered  by  such 
certificates.  The  programme  I  set  forth  was  somewhat  extensive, 
as  I  considered  that  the  applicant  must  not  only  bring  evidence 
of  a  sound  ancestry,  but  also  submit  to  anthropological,  psychological, 
and  medical  examination.  Galton  eventually  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  expenses  involved  by  the  scheme  rendered  it  for  the  present 
impracticable.  My  opinion  was,  and  is,  that  though  the  charge  for 
such  a  certificate  might  in  the  first  place  be  prohibitive  for  most  people, 
a  few  persons  might  find  it  desirable  to  seek,  and  advantageous  to 
possess,  such  certificates,  and  that  it  is  worth  while  at  all  events  to 
make  a  beginning. 


204        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

observances  of  that  day  have  now  died  out,  St.  Valentine 
was  for  many  centuries  the  patron  saint  of  sexual 
selection,  more  especially  in  England.  It  can  scarcely 
be  said  that  any  credit  in  this  matter  belongs  to  the 
venerable  saint  himself  ;  it  was  by  an  accident  that  he 
achieved  his  conspicuous  position  in  the  world.  He  was 
simply  a  pious  Christian  who  was  beheaded  for  his  faith 
in  Rome  under  Claudius.  But  it  so  happened  that  his 
festival  fell  at  that  period  in  early  spring  when  birds 
were  believed  to  pair,  and  when  youths  and  maidens 
were  accustomed  to  select  partners  for  themselves  or 
for  others.  This  custom — which  has  been  studied  to- 
gether with  many  allied  primitive  practices  by  Mann- 
hardt  1 — was  not  always  carried  out  on  February  14, 
sometimes  it  took  place  a  little  later.  In  England, 
where  it  was  strictly  associated  with  St.  Valentine's 
Day,  the  custom  was  referred  to  by  Lydgate,  and  by 
Charles  of  Orleans  in  the  rondeaus  and  ballades  he  wrote 
during  his  long  imprisonment  in  England.  The  name 
Valentins  or  Valentines  was  also  introduced  into  France 
(where  the  custom  had  long  existed)  to  designate  the 
young  couples  thus  constituted.  This  method  of  sexual 
selection,  half  playful,  half  serious,  nourished  especially 
in  the  region  between  England,  the  Moselle,  and  the 
Tyrol.  The  essential  part  of  the  custom  lay  in  the  public 
choice  of  a  fitting  mate  for  marriageable  girls.  Some- 
times the  question  of  fitness  resolved  itself  into  one  of 

1  Mannhardt,  Wold-  und  Feldkulte,  1875,  Vol.  I,  pp.  422  et  seq. 
I  have  discussed  seasonal  erotic  festivals  in  a  study  of  "  The  Phenomena 
of  Sexual  Periodicity,"  Studies  in  the  Psychology  of  Sex,  Vol.  I. 


EUGENICS   AND    LOVE  205 

good  looks  ;  occasionally  the  matter  was  settled  by  lot. 
There  was  no  compulsion  about  these  unions ;  they 
were  often  little  more  than  a  game,  though  at  times  they 
involved  a  degree  of  immorality  which  caused  the 
authorities  to  oppose  them.  But  very  frequently  the 
sexual  selection  thus  exerted  led  to  weddings,  and  these 
playful  Valentine  unions  were  held  to  be  a  specially 
favourable  prelude  to  a  happy  marriage. 

It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  show  how  the  ancient 
customs  associated  with  St.  Valentine's  Day  are  taken 
up  again  and  placed  on  a  higher  plane  by  the  great 
movement  which  is  now  beginning  to  shape  itself  among 
us.  The  old  Valentine  unions  were  made  by  a  process  of 
caprice  tempered  more  or  less  by  sound  instincts  and 
good  sense.  In  the  sexual  selection  of  the  future  the 
same  results  will  be  attained  by  more  or  less  deliberate 
and  conscious  recognition  of  the  great  laws  and  tendencies 
which  investigation  is  slowly  bringing  to  light.  The  new  St. 
Valentine  will  be  a  saint  of  science  rather  than  of  folk-lore. 

Whenever  such  statements  as  these  are  made  it  is 
always  retorted  that  love  laughs  at  science,  and  that  the 
winds  of  passion  blow  where  they  list.1    That,  however, 

1  Thus  we  read  in  a  small  popular  periodical  :  "I  am  prepared  to 
back  human  nature  against  all  the  cranks  in  Christendom.  Human 
nature  will  endure  a  faddist  so  long  as  he  does  not  interfere  with  things 
it  prizes.  One  of  these  things  is  the  right  to  select  its  partner  for  life. 
If  a  man  loves  a  girl  he  is  not  going  to  give  her  up  because  she  happens 
to  have  an  aunt  in  a  lunatic  asylum  or  an  uncle  who  has  epileptic 
fits,"  etc.  In  the  same  way  it  may  be  said  that  a  man  will  allow  nothing 
to  interfere  with  his  right  to  eat  such  food  as  he  chooses,  and  is  not 
going  to  give  up  a  dish  he  likes  because  it  happens  to  be  peppered  with 
arsenic.  It  may  be  so,  let  us  grant,  among  savages.  The  growth  of 
civilization  lies  in  ever-extended  self-control  guided  by  foresight. 


206        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

is  by  no  means  altogether  true,  and  in  any  case  it  is  far 
from  covering  the  whole  of  the  ground.     It  is  hard  to 
fight  against  human  nature,  but  human  nature  itself  is 
opposed  to  indiscriminate  choice  of  mates.     It  is  not 
true   that   any   one   tends   to  love   anybody,   and   that 
mutual  attraction  is  entirely  a  matter  of  chance.     The 
investigations  which  have  lately  been  carried  out  show 
that  there  are  certain  definite  tendencies  in  this  matter, 
that  certain  kinds  of  people  tend  to  be  attracted  to 
certain  kinds,  especially  that  like  are  attracted  to  like 
rather  than  unlike  to  unlike,  and  that,  again,  while  some 
kinds  of  people  tend  to  be  married  with  special  frequency 
other  kinds  tend  to  be  left  unmarried.1    Sexual  selection, 
even  when  left  to  random  influences,  is  still  not  left  to 
chance  ;    it  follows  definite  and  ascertainable  laws.     In 
that  way  the  play  of  love,  however  free  it  may  appear, 
is  really  limited  in  a  number  of  directions.     People  do 
not  tend  to  fall  in  love  with  those  who  are  in  racial 
respects  a  contrast  to  themselves  ;    they  do  not  tend  to 
fall  in  love  with  foreigners  ;    they  do  not  tend  to  be 
attracted  to  the  ugly,  the  diseased,  the  deformed.     All 
these  things  may  happen,  but  they  are  the  exception 
and  not  the  rule.     These  limitations  to  the  roving  im- 
pulses of  love,  while  very  real,  to  some  extent  vary  at 
different  periods  in  accordance  with  the  ideals  which 
happen  to  be  fashionable.     In  more  remote  ages  they 
have  been  still  more  profoundly  modified  by  religious 

1  I  have  summarized  some  of  the  evidence  on  these  points,  especially 
that  showing  that  sexual  attraction  tends  to  be  towards  like  persons 
and  not,  as  was  formerly  supposed,  towards  the  unlike,  in  Studies  in  the 
Psychology  of  Sex,  Vol.  IV,  "  Sexual  Selection  in  Man." 


EUGENICS  AND   LOVE  207 

and  social  ideas  ;  polygamy  and  polyandry,  the  custom 
of  marrying  only  inside  one's  own  caste,  or  only  outside 
it,  all  these  various  and  contradictory  plans  have  been 
easily  accepted  at  some  place  and  some  time,  and  have 
offered  no  more  conscious  obstacle  to  the  free  play  of 
love  than  among  ourselves  is  offered  by  the  prohibition 
against  marriage  between  near  relations. 

Those  simple-minded  people  who  talk  about  the  blind 
and  irresistible  force  of  passion  are  themselves  blind  to 
very  ordinary  psychological  facts.  Passion — when  it 
occurs — requires  in  normal  persons  cumulative  and  pro- 
longed forces  to  impart  to  it  full  momentum.1  In  its 
early  stages  it  is  under  the  control  of  many  influences, 
including  influences  of  reason.  If  it  were  not  so  there 
could  be  no  sexual  selection,  nor  any  social  organiza- 
tion.2 

The  eugenic  ideal  which  is  now  developing  is  thus  not 
an  artificial  product,  but  the  reasoned  manifestation  of  a 
natural  instinct,  which  has  often  been  far  more  severely 
strained  by  the  arbitrary  prohibitions  of  the  past  than 
it  is  ever  likely  to  be  by  any  eugenic  ideals  of  the  future. 
The  new  ideal  will  be  absorbed  into  the  conscience  of  the 

1  In  other  words,  the  process  of  tumescence  is  gradual  and  complex. 
See  Havelock  Ellis,  Studies  in  the  Psychology  of  Sex,  Vol.  Ill,  "The 
Analysis  of  the  Sexual  Impulse." 

2  As  Roswell  Johnson  remarks  ("  The  Evolution  of  Man  and  its 
Control,"  Popular  Science  Monthly,  January,  1910)  :  "  While  it  is 
undeniable  that  love  when  once  established  defies  rational  considera- 
tions, yet  we  must  remark  that  sexual  selection  proceeds  usually  through 
two  stages,  the  first  being  one  of  mere  mutual  attraction  and  interest. 
It  is  in  this  stage  that  the  will  and  reason  are  operative,  and  here  alone 
that  any  considerable  elevation  of  standard  may  be  effective." 


208        THE  TASK    OF    SOCIAL   HYGIENE 

community,  whether  or  not  like  a  kind  of  new  religion,1 
and  will  instinctively  and  unconsciously  influence  the 
impulses  of  men  and  women.  It  will  do  all  this  the  more 
surely  since,  unlike  the  taboos  of  savage  societies,  the 
eugenic  ideal  will  lead  men  and  women  to  reject  as 
partners  only  the  men  and  women  who  are  naturally 
unfit — the  diseased,  the  abnormal,  the  weaklings — and 
conscience  will  thus  be  on  the  side  of  impulse. 

It  may  indeed  be  pointed  out  that  those  who  advocate 
a  higher  and  more  scientific  conscience  in  matters  of 
mating  are  by  no  means  plotting  against  love,  which  is 
for  the  most  part  on  their  side,  but  rather  against  the 
influences  that  do  violence  to  love  :  on  the  one  hand, 
the  reckless  and  thoughtless  yielding  to  mere  momentary 
desire,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  still  more  fatal  in- 
fluences of  wealth  and  position  and  worldly  convenience 
which  give  a  factitious  value  to  persons  who  would  never 
appear  attractive  partners  in  life  were  love  and  eugenic 
ideals  left  to  go  hand  in  hand.  It  is  such  unions,  and 
not  those  inspired  by  the  wholesome  instincts  of  whole- 
some lovers,  which  lead,  if  not  to  the  abstract  "  deteriora- 

1  Galton  looked  upon  eugenics  as  fitted  to  become  a  factor  in  religion 
(Essays  in  Eugenics,  p.  68).  It  may,  however,  be  questioned  whether 
this  consummation  is  either  probable  or  desirable.  The  same  religious 
claim  has  been  made  for  socialism.  But,  as  Dr.  Eden  Paul  remarks 
in  a  recent  pamphlet  on  Socialism  and  Eugenics,  "  Whereas  both 
Socialism  and  Eugenics  are  concerned  solely  with  the  application  of 
the  knowledge  gained  by  experience  to  the  amelioration  of  the  human 
lot,  it  seems  preferable  to  dispense  with  religious  terminology,  and  to 
regard  the  two  doctrines  as  complementary  parts  of  the  great  modern 
movement  known  by  the  name  of  Humanism."  Personally,  I  do  not 
consider  that  either  Socialism  or  Eugenics  can  be  regarded  as  coming 
within  the  legitimate  sphere  of  religion,  which  I  have  elsewhere  at- 
tempted to  define  (Conclusion  to  The  New  Spirit). 


EUGENICS  AND   LOVE  209 

tion  of  the  race,"  at  all  events  in  numberless  cases  to  the 
abiding  unhappiness  of  persons  who  choose  a  mate  with- 
out realizing  how  that  mate  is  likely  to  develop,  nor 
what  sort  of  children  may  probably  be  expected  from 
the  union.  The  eugenic  ideal  will  have  to  struggle  with 
the  criminal  and  still  more  resolutely  with  the  rich  ;  it 
will  have  few  serious  quarrels  with  normal  and  well 
constituted  lovers. 

It  will  now  perhaps  be  clear  how  it  is  that  the  eugenic 
conception  of  the  improvement  of  the  race  embodies  a 
new  ideal.  We  are  familiar  with  legislative  projects  for 
compulsory  certificates  as  a  condition  of  marriage.  But 
even  apart  from  all  the  other  considerations  which 
make  such  schemes  both  illusory  and  undesirable,  these 
externally  imposed  regulations  fail  to  go  to  the  root  of 
the  matter.  If  they  are  voluntary,  if  they  spring  out  of 
a  fine  eugenic  aspiration,  it  is  another  matter.  Under 
these  conditions  the  method  may  be  carried  out  at  once. 
Professor  Grasset  has  pointed  out  one  way  in  which 
this  may  be  effected.  We  cannot,  he  remarks,  follow 
the  procedure  of  a  military  conseil  de  revision  and  com- 
pulsorily  reject  the  candidate  for  a  definite  defect.  But 
it  would  be  possible  for  the  two  families  concerned  to 
call  a  conference  of  their  two  family  doctors,  after 
examination  of  the  would-be  bride  and  bridegroom, 
permitting  the  doctors  to  discuss  freely  the  medical 
aspects  of  the  proposed  union,  and  undertaking  to 
accept  their  decision,  without  asking  for  the  revelation  of 
any  secrets,  the  families  thus  remaining  ignorant  of  the 
defect  which  prevented  this  union  but  might  not  prevent 


210        THE   TASK   OF   SOCIAL   HYGIENE 

another  union,  for  the  chief  danger  in  many  cases  comes 
from  the  conjunction  of  convergent  morbid  tendencies.1 
In  France,  where  much  power  remains  with  the  re- 
spective families,  this  method  might  be  operative,  pro- 
vided complete  confidence  was  felt  in  the  doctors  con- 
cerned. In  some  countries,  such  as  England,  the 
prospective  couple  might  prefer  to  take  the  matter  into 
their  own  hands,  to  discuss  it  frankly,  and  to  seek 
medical  advice  on  their  own  account ;  this  is  now  much 
more  frequently  done  than  was  formerly  the  case.  But 
all  compulsory  projects  of  this  kind,  and  indeed  any  mere 
legislation,  cannot  go  to  the  root  of  the  matter.  For  in 
the  first  place,  what  we  need  is  a  great  body  of  facts,  and 
a  careful  attention  to  the  record  and  registration  and 
statistical  tabulation  of  personal  and  family  histories. 
In  the  second  place,  we  need  that  sound  ideals  and  a 
high  sense  of  responsibility  should  permeate  the  whole 
community,  first  its  finer  and  more  distinguished  members 
and  then,  by  the  usual  contagion  that  rules  in  such 
matters,  the  whole  body  of  its  members.2    In  time,  no 

1  J.  Grasset,  in  Dr.  A.  Marie's  Traitc  International  de  Psychologie 
Pathologique,  1910,  Vol.  I,  p.  25.  Grasset  proceeds  to  discuss  the 
principles  which  must  guide  the  physician  in  such  consultations. 

2  This  has  been  clearly  realized  by  the  German  Society  of  Eugenics 
or  "  Racial  Hygiene,"  as  it  is  usually  termed  in  Germany  (Inter- 
nationale Gesellschaft  fur  Rassen-Hygiene) ,  founded  by  Dr.  Alfred 
Ploetz,  with  the  co-operation  of  many  distinguished  physicians  and 
men  of  science,  "  to  further  the  theory  and  practice  of  racial  hygiene." 
It  is  a  chief  aim  of  this  Society  to  encourage  the  registration  by  the 
members  of  the  biological  and  other  physical  and  psychic  characteristics 
of  themselves  and  their  families,  in  order  to  obtain  a  body  of  data  on 
which  conclusions  may  eventually  be  based  ;  the  members  under- 
take not  to  enter  on  a  marriage  except  they  are  assured  by  medical 
investigation  of  both  parties  that  the  union  is  not  likely  to  cause 


EUGENICS  AND  LOVE  211 

doubt,  this  would  lead  to  concerted  social  action.  We 
may  reasonably  expect  that  a  time  will  come  when  if, 
for  instance,  an  epileptic  woman  conceals  her  condition 
from  the  man  she  is  marrying  it  would  generally  be  felt 
that  an  offence  has  been  committed  serious  enough  to 
invalidate  the  marriage.  We  must  not  suppose  that 
lovers  would  be  either  willing  or  competent  to  investi- 
gate each  other's  family  and  medical  histories.  But  it 
would  be  at  least  as  easy  and  as  simple  to  choose  a 
partner  from  those  persons  who  had  successfully  passed 
the  eugenic  test — more  especially  since  such  persons 
would  certainly  be  the  most  attractive  group  in  the 
community — as  it  is  for  an  Australian  aborigine  to 
select  a  conjugal  partner  from  one  social  group  rather 
than  from  any  other.1  It  is  a  matter  of  accepting  an 
ideal  and  of  exerting  our  personal  and  social  influence  in 
the  direction  of  that  ideal.  If  we  really  seek  to  raise  the 
level  of  humanity  we  may  in  this  way  begin  to  do  so 
to-day. 

disaster  to  either  partner  or  to  the  offspring.  The  Society  also  admits 
associates  who  only  occupy  themselves  with  the  scientific  aspects  of 
its  work  and  with  propaganda.  In  England  the  Eugenics  Education 
Society  (with  its  organ  the  Eugenics  Review)  has  done  much  to  stimulate 
an  intelligent  interest  in  eugenics. 

1  How  influential  public  opinion  may  be  in  the  selection  of  mates 
is  indicated  by  the  influence  it  already  exerts- — in  less  than  a  century — 
in  the  limitation  of  offspring.  This  is  well  marked  in  some  parts  of 
France.  Thus,  concerning  a  rural  district  near  the  Garonne,  Dr. 
Belbeze,  who  knows  it  thoroughly,  writes  (La  Neurasthenie  Rurale, 
191 1)  :  "  Public  opinion  does  not  at  present  approve  of  multiple 
procreation.  Large  families,  there  can  be  no  doubt,  are  treated  with 
contempt.  Couples  who  produce  a  numerous  progeny  are  looked  on, 
with  a  wink,  as  '  maladroits,'  which  in  this  region  is  perhaps  the  supreme 
term  of  abuse.  .  .  .  Public  opinion  is  all-powerful,  and  alone  suffices 
to  produce  restraint,  when  foresight  is  not  adequate  for  this  purpose." 


212        THE  TASK  OF  SOCIAL  HYGIENE 


NOTE   ON   THE   LIFE-HISTORY   RECORD 

The  extreme  interest  of  a  Life-History  Record  is  obvious, 
even  apart  from  its  eventual  scientific  value.     Most  of  us 
would  have  reason  to  congratulate  ourselves  had  such  records 
been   customary  when   we  were  ourselves  children.     It  is 
probable   that    this   is    becoming    more   generally    realized, 
though  until  recently  only  the  pioneers  have  here  been  active. 
"  I  started  a  Life-History  Album  for  each  of  my  children," 
writes  Mr.  F.  H.  Perrycoste  in  a  private  letter,  "  as  soon  as 
they  were  born  ;    and  by  the  time  they  arrive  at  man's  and 
woman's  estate  they  will  have  valuable  records  of  their  own 
physical,  mental,  and  moral  development,  which  should  be 
of  great  service  to  them  when  they  come  to  have  children  of 
their  own,   whilst  the  physical — in  which  are  included,  of 
course,  medical — records  may  at  any  time  be  of  great  value 
to  their  own  medical  advisers  in  later  life.     I  have  reason 
to  regret  that  some  such  Albums  were  not  kept  for  my  wife 
and  myself,   for   they  would   have  afforded   the  necessary 
data  by  which  to  '  size  up  '  the  abilities  and  conduct  of  our 
children.    I  know,  for  instance,  pretty  well  what  was  my  own 
Galtonian  rank  as  a  schoolboy,  and  I  am  constantly  asking 
myself  whether  my  boy  will  do  as  well,  better,  or  worse. 
Now  fortunately  I  do  happen  to  remember  roughly  what 
stages  I  had  reached  at  one  or  two  transition  periods  of 
school-life  ;    but  if  only  such  an  Album  had  been  kept  for 
me,  I  could  turn  it  up  and  check  my  boy  against  myself 
in  each  subject  at  each  yearly  stage.    You  will  gather  from 
this  that  I  consider  it  of  great  importance  that  ample  details 
of  school- work  and  intellectual  development  should  be  entered 
in  the  Album.     I  find  the  space  at  my  disposal  for  these 
entries  insufficient,   and  consequently  I  summarize  in  the 
Album  and  insert  a  reference  to  sheets  of  fuller  details  which 
I  keep  ;    but  it  might  be  well,  when  another  edition  of  the 


EUGENICS  AND   LOVE  213 

Album  comes  to  be  published,  to  agitate  for  the  insertion  of 
extra  blank  pages  after  the  age  of  eight  or  nine,  in  order  to 
allow  of  the  transcription  of  full  school-reports.  How- 
ever, the  great  thing  is  to  induce  people  to  keep  an  Album 
that  will  form  the  nucleus  round  which  any  number  of  fuller 
records  can  cluster." 

It  is  not  necessary  that  the  Galtonian  type  of  Album 
should  be  rigidly  preserved,  and  I  am  indebted  to  "  Henry 
Hamill,"  the  author  of  The  Truth  We  Owe  to  Youth,  for  the 
following  suggestions  as  to  the  way  in  which  such  a  record 
may  be  carried  out : 

"  The  book  should  not  be  a  mere  dry  rigmarole,  but  include 
a  certain  appeal  to  sentiment.  The  subject  should  begin 
to  make  the  entries  himself  when  old  enough  to  do  so  properly, 
i.e.  so  that  the  book  will  not  be  disfigured — though  indeed 
the  naivity  of  juvenile  phrasing,  etc.,  may  be  of  a  particular 
interest.  From  a  graphological  point  of  view,  the  evolution 
of  the  handwriting  will  be  of  interest ;  and  if  for  no  other 
reason,  specimens  of  handwriting  ought  to  appear  in  it  from 
year  to  year,  while  the  parent  is  still  writing  the  other  entries 
There  may  now  be  a  certain  sacramental  character  in  the  life- 
history.  The  subject  should  be  led  to  regard  the  book  as 
a  witness,  and  to  perceive  in  it  an  additional  reason  for  avoiding 
every  act  the  mention  of  which  would  be  a  disfigurement  of 
the  history.  At  the  same  time,  the  nature  of  the  witness 
may  be  made  to  correct  the  wrong  notions  prevailing  as  to 
the  worthiness  of  acts,  and  to  sanctify  certain  of  them  that 
have  been  foolishly  degraded.  Thus  there  may  be  left  several 
leaves  blank  before  the  pages  of  forms  for  filling  in  anthropo- 
metric and  physiological  data,  and  the  headings  may  be 
made  to  suggest  a  worthier  way  of  viewing  these  things. 
For  instance,  there  may  be  the  indication  '  Place  and  time  of 
conception,'  and  a  specimen  entry  may  be  of  service  to  lead 
commonplace  minds  into  a  more  reverent  and  poetical  view 
than  is  now  usual — such  as  the  one  I  culled  from  the  life- 


214         THE  TASK   OF   SOCIAL  HYGIENE 

history  of  an  American  child  :    '  Our  second  child  M 

was  conceived  on  Midsummer  Day,  under  the  shade  of  a 
friendly  sycamore,  beneath  the  cloudless  blue  of  Southern 
California.'  Or,  instead  of  restricting  the  reference  to  the 
particular  episode,  it  may  refer  to  the  whole  chapter  of 
Love  which  that  episode  adorned,  more  especially  in  the  case 
of  a  first  child,  when  a  poetical  history  of  the  mating  of  the 
parents  may  precede.  The  presence  of  the  idea  that  the 
book  would  some  day  be  read  by  others  than  the  intimate 
circle,  would  restrain  the  tendency  of  some  persons  to  inordi- 
nate self- revelation  and  '  gush.'  Such  books  as  these  would 
form  the  dearest  heirlooms  of  a  family,  helping  to  knit  its 
bonds  firmer,  and  giving  an  insight  into  individual  character 
which  would  supplement  the  more  tangible  data  for  the 
pedigree  in  a  most  valuable  way.  The  photographs  taken 
every  three  months  or  so  ought  to  be  as  largely  as  possible 
nude.  The  gradual  transition  from  childhood  would  help 
to  prevent  an  abrupt  feeling  arising,  and  the  practice  would 
be  a  valuable  aid  to  the  rehabilitation  of  the  nude,  and  of 
genuineness  in  our  daily  life,  no  matter  in  what  respect. 
This  leads  to  the  difficult  question  of  how  far  moral  aspects 
should  be  entertained.  '  To-day  Johnnie  told  his  first  fib  ; 
we  pretended  to  disbelieve  everything  else  he  said,  and  he 
began  to  see  that  lying  was  bad  policy.'  '  Chastised  Johnnie 
for  the  first  time  for  pulling  the  wings  off  a  fly  ;  he  wanted 
to  know  why  we  might  kill  flies  outright,  but  not  mutilate 
them,'  and  so  on.  For  in  this  way  parents  would  train  them- 
selves in  the  psychology  of  education  and  character-building, 
though  books  by  specially  gifted  parents  would  soon  appear 
for  their  guidance. 

"  Of  course,  whatever  relevant  circumstances  were  available 
about  the  ante-natal  period  or  the  mother's  condition  would 
be  noted  (but  who  would  expect  a  mother  to  note  that  she 
laced  tight  up  to  such  and  such  a  month  ?  Perhaps  the 
keeping  of  a  log  like  this  might  act  as  a  deterrent).    Similarly, 


EUGENICS  AND  LOVE  215 

under  diet  and  regimen,  year  by  year,  the  assumption  of 
breast-feeding — provision  of  columns  for  the  various  incidents 
of  it — weight  before  and  after  feeding,  etc.,  would  have  a 
great  suggestive  value. 

"  The  provision  under  diet  and  regimen  of  columns  for 
'  drug  habits,  if  any  ' — tea,  coffee,  alcohol,  nicotine,  morphia, 
etc. — would  have  a  suggestive  value  and  operate  in  the 
direction  of  the  simple  life  and  a  reverence  for  the  body. 
Some  good  aphorisms  might  be  strewed  in,  such  as  : 

'"If  anything  is  sacred,  the  human  body  is  sacred '  (Whit- 
man). 

"  As  young  people  circulate  their  '  Books  of  Likes  and 
Dislikes,'  etc.,  and  thus  in  an  entertaining  way  provide  each 
other  with  insight  into  mutual  character,  so  the  Life-History 
need  not  be  an  arcanum — at  least  where  people  have  nothing 
to  be  ashamed  of.  It  would  be  a  very  trying  ordeal,  no  doubt, 
to  admit  even  intimate  friends  to  this  confidence.  But  as 
eugenics  spread,  concealment  of  taint  will  become  almost  im- 
practicable, and  the  facts  may  as  well  be  confessed.  But 
even  then  there  will  be  limitations.  There  might  be  an 
esoteric  book  for  the  individual's  own  account  of  himself. 
Such  important  items  as  the  incidence  of  puberty  (though 
notorious  in  some  communities)  could  not  well  be  included  in 
a  book  open  even  to  the  family  circle,  for  generations  to  come. 
The  quiescence  of  the  genital  sense,  the  sedatives  naturally 
occurring,  important  as  these  are,  and  occupying  the  con- 
sciousness in  so  large  a  degree,  would  find  no  place  ;  never- 
theless, a  private  journal  of  the  facts  would  help  to  steady 
the  individual,  and  prove  a  check  against  disrespect  to  his 
body. 

"As  the  facts  of  individual  evolution  would  be  noted,  so 
likewise  would  those  of  dissolution.  The  first  signs  of  decay 
— the  teeth,  the  elasticity  of  body  and  mind — would  provide 
a  valuable  sphere  for  all  who  are  disposed  to  the  diary-habit. 
The  journals  of  individuals  with  a  gift  for  introspection  would 


216        THE  TASK   OF   SOCIAL   HYGIENE 

furnish  valuable  material  for  psychologists  in  the  future. 
Life  would  be  cleansed  in  many  ways.  Journals  would  not 
have  to  be  bowdlerized,  like  Marie  Bashkirtseff's,  for  the 
morbidity  that  gloats  on  the  forbidden  would  have  a  lesser 
scope,  much  that  is  now  regarded  as  disgraceful  being  then 
accepted  as  natural  and  right. 

"  The  book  might  have  several  volumes,  and  that  for  the 
periods  of  infancy  and  childhood  might  need  to  be  less  private 
than  the  one  for  puberty.  More,  in  his  Utopia,  demands  that 
lovers  shall  learn  to  know  each  other  as  they  really  are, 
i.e.  naked.  That  is  now  the  most  Utopian  thing  in  More's 
Utopia.  But  the  lovers  might  communicate  their  life- 
histories  to  each  other  as  a  preliminary. 

"  The  whole  plan  would,  of  course,  finally  have  to  be  over- 
hauled by  the  so-called  '  man  of  the  world.' " 

Not  everyone  may  agree  with  this  conception  of  the  Life- 
History  Album  and  its  uses.  Some  will  prefer  a  severely  dry 
and  bald  record  of  measurements.  At  the  present  time, 
however,  there  is  room  for  very  various  types  of  such  docu- 
ments. The  important  point  is  to  realize  that,  in  some  form 
or  another,  a  record  of  this  kind  from  birth  or  earlier  is  prac- 
ticable, and  constitutes  a  record  which  is  highly  desirable 
alike  on  personal,  social,  and  scientific  grounds. 


VII 
RELIGION    AND    THE    CHILD 

Religious  Education  in  Relation  to  Social  Hygiene  and  to  Psychology 
— The  Psychology  of  the  Child— The  Contents  of  Children's  Minds 
— The  Imagination  of  Children — How  far  may  Religion  be  assimi- 
lated by  Children  ? — Unfortunate  Results  of  Early  Religious  In- 
struction— Puberty  the  Age  for  Religious  Education — Religion  as 
an  Initiation  into  a  Mystery — Initiation  among  Savages — The  Chris- 
tian Sacraments — The  Modern  Tendency  as  regards  Religious 
Instruction — Its  Advantages — Children  and  Fairy  Tales — The 
Bible  of  Childhood — Moral  Training, 

IT  is  a  fact  as  strange  as  it  is  unfortunate  that  the 
much-debated  question  of  the  religious  education 
of  children  is  almost  exclusively  considered  from 
the  points  of  view  of  the  sectarian  and  the  secularist.  In 
a  discussion  of  this  question  we  are  almost  certain  to  be 
invited  to  take  part  in  an  unedifying  wrangle  between 
Church  and  Chapel,  between  religion  and  secularism. 
That  is  the  strange  part  of  it,  that  it  should  seem  im- 
possible to  get  away  from  this  sectarian  dispute  as  to  the 
abstract  claims  of  varying  religious  bodies.  The  un- 
fortunate part  of  it  is  that  in  this  quarrel  the  interests 
of  the  community,  the  interests  of  the  child,  even  the 
interests  of  religion  are  alike  disregarded. 

If  we  really  desire  to  reach  a  sound  conclusion  on  a 
matter  which  is  unquestionably  of  great  moment,  both 
for  the  child  and  for  the  community  of  which  he  will  one 

217 


218        THE  TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

day  become  a  citizen,  we  must  resolutely  put  into  the 
background,  as  of  secondary  importance,  the  cries  of 
contending  sects,  religious  or  irreligious.  The  first  place 
here  belongs  to  the  psychologist,  who  is  building  up  the 
already  extensive  edifice  of  knowledge  concerning  the 
real  nature  of  the  child  and  the  contents  and  growth  of 
the  youthful  mind,  and  to  the  practical  teacher  who  is 
in  touch  with  that  knowledge  and  can  bring  it  to  the 
test  of  actual  experience.  Before  considering  what 
drugs  are  to  be  administered  we  must  consider  the 
nature  of  the  organism  they  are  to  be  thrust  into. 

The  mind  of  the  child  is  at  once  logical  and  extravagant, 
matter-of-fact  and  poetic  or  rather  mytho-pceic.  This 
combination  of  apparent  opposites,  though  it  often 
seems  almost  incomprehensible  to  the  adult,  is  the 
inevitable  outcome  of  the  fact  that  the  child's  dawning 
intelligence  is  working,  as  it  were,  in  a  vacuum.  In 
other  words,  the  child  has  not  acquired  the  two  endow- 
ments which  chiefly  give  character  to  the  whole  body  of 
the  adult's  beliefs  and  feelings.  He  is  without  the 
pubertal  expansion  which  fills  out  the  mind  with  new 
personal  and  altruistic  impulses  and  transforms  it  with 
emotion  that  is  often  dazzling  and  sometimes  distorting ; 
and  he  has  not  yet  absorbed,  or  even  gained  the  power 
of  absorbing,  all  those  beliefs,  opinions,  and  mental 
attitudes  which  the  race  has  slowly  acquired  and  trans- 
mitted as  the  traditional  outcome  of  its  experiences. 

The  intellectual  processes  of  children,  the  attitude  and 
contents  of  the  child's  mind,  have  been  explored  during 
recent  years  with  a  care  and  detail  that  have  never  been 


RELIGION  AND   THE  CHILD  219 

brought  to  that  study  before.  This  is  not  a  matter  of 
which  the  adult  can  be  said  to  possess  any  instinctive 
or  matter-of-course  knowledge.  Adults  usually  have  a 
strange  aptitude  to  forget  entirely  the  facts  of  their 
lives  as  children,  and  children  are  usually,  like  peoples 
of  primitive  race,  very  cautious  in  the  deliberate  com- 
munication of  their  mental  operations,  their  emotions, 
and  their  ideas.  That  is  to  say  that  the  child  is  equally 
without  the  internally  acquired  complex  emotional 
nature  which  has  its  kernel  in  the  sexual  impulse,  and 
without  the  externally  acquired  mental  equipment  which 
may  be  summed  up  in  the  word  tradition.  But  he 
possesses  the  vivid  activities  founded  on  the  exercise  of 
his  senses  and  appetites,  and  he  is  able  to  reason  with  a 
relentless  severity  from  which  the  traditionalized  and 
complexly  emotional  adult  shrinks  back  with  horror. 
The  child  creates  the  world  for  himself,  and  he  creates 
it  in  his  own  image  and  the  images  of  the  persons  he  is 
familiar  with.  Nothing  is  sacred  to  him,  and  he  pushes 
to  the  most  daring  extremities — as  it  seems  to  the  adult 
— the  arguments  derived  from  his  own  personal  experi- 
ences. He  is  unable  to  see  any  distinction  between  the 
natural  and  the  supernatural,  and  he  is  justified  in  this 
conviction  because,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  he  himself  lives 
in  what  for  most  adults  would  be  a  supernatural  atmo- 
sphere ;  most  children  see  visions  with  closed  and  some- 
times with  open  eyes  ;l  they  are  not  infrequently  subject 

1  De  Quincey  in  his  Confessions  of  an  Opium  Eater  referred  to 
the  power  that  many,  perhaps  most,  children  possess  of  seeing  visions 
in  the  dark.  The  phenomenon  has  been  carefully  studied  by  G.  L. 
Partridge  (Pedagogical  Seminary,  April,   1S98)   in  over  800  children. 


220         THE  TASK  OF   SOCIAL  HYGIENE 

to  colour-hearing  and  other  synaesthetic  sensations ; 
and  they  occasionally  hear  hallucinatory  voices.  It  is 
possible,  indeed,  that  this  is  the  case  with  all  children  in 
some  slight  degree,  although  the  faculty  dies  out  early 
and  is  easily  forgotten  because  its  extraordinary  char- 
acter was  never  recognized. 

Of  48  Boston  children,  says  Stanley  Hall,1  20  believed 
the  sun,  moon,  and  stars  to  live,  16  thought  flowers 
could  feel,  and  15  that  dolls  would  feel  pain  if  burnt. 
The  sky  was  found  the  chief  field  in  which  the  children 
exercise  their  philosophic  minds.  About  three-quarters 
of  them  thought  the  world  a  plain  with  the  sky  like  a 
bowl  turned  over  it,  sometimes  believing  that  it  was  of 
such  thin  texture  that  one  could  easily  break  through, 
though  so  large  that  much  floor-sweeping  was  necessary 
in  Heaven.  The  sun  may  enter  the  ground  when  it 
sets,  but  half  the  children  thought  that  at  night  it  rolls 
or  flies  away,  or  is  blown  or  walks,  or  God  pulls  it  higher 
up  out  of  sight,  taking  it  up  into  Heaven,  according  to 
some  putting  it  to  bed,  and  even  taking  off  its  clothes  and 
putting  them  on  again  in  the  morning,  or  again,  it  is 
believed  to  lie  under  the  trees  at  night  and  the  angels 
mind  it.     God,  of  whom  the  children  always  hear  so 

He  found  that  58'5  of  them  aged  between  thirteen  and  sixteen  could 
see  visions  or  images  at  night  with  closed  eyes  before  falling  asleep  ; 
of  those  aged  six  the  proportion  was  higher.  There  seemed  to  be  a 
maximum  at  the  age  of  ten,  and  probably  another  maximum  at  a 
much  earlier  age.  Among  adults  this  tendency  is  rudimentary,  and 
only  found  in  a  marked  form  in  neurasthenic  subjects  or  at  moments 
of  nervous  exhaustion.    See  also  Havelock  Ellis,  The  World  of  Dreams, 

chap.  11. 

1  G.  Stanley  Hall,  "  The  Contents  of  Children's  Minds  on  Entering 
School,"  Pedagogical  Seminary,  June,  1891. 


RELIGION   AND   THE   CHILD  221 

much,  plays  a  very  large  part  in  these  conceptions,  and 
is  made  directly  responsible  for  all  cosmic  phenomena. 
Thus  thunder  to  these  American  children  was  God 
groaning  or  kicking  or  rolling  barrels  about,  or  turning 
a  big  handle,  or  grinding  snow,  or  breaking  something, 
or  rattling  a  big  hammer ;  while  the  lightning  is  due  to 
God  putting  his  finger  out,  or  turning  the  gas  on  quick, 
or  striking  matches,  or  setting  paper  on  fire.  According 
to  Boston  children,  God  is  a  big,  perhaps  a  blue,  man, 
to  be  seen  in  the  sky,  on  the  clouds,  in  church,  or  even 
in  the  streets.  They  declare  that  God  comes  to  see  them 
sometimes,  and  they  have  seen  him  enter  the  gate.  He 
makes  lamps,  babies,  dogs,  trees,  money,  etc.,  and  the 
angels  work  for  him.  He  looks  like  a  priest,  or  a  teacher, 
or  papa,  and  the  children  like  to  look  at  him  ;  a  few 
would  themselves  like  to  be  God.  His  house  in  the  sky 
may  be  made  of  stone  or  brick  ;  birds,  children,  and 
Santa  Claus  live  with  God. 

Birds  and  beasts,  their  food  and  their  furniture,  as 
Burnham  points  out,  all  talk  to  children  ;  when  the  dew 
is  on  the  grass  "  the  grass  is  crying,"  the  stars  are  candles 
or  lamps,  perhaps  cinders  from  God's  stove,  butterflies 
are  flying  pansies,  icicles  are  Christmas  candy.  Children 
have  imaginary  play-brothers  and  sisters  and  friends, 
with  whom  they  talk.  Sometimes  God  talks  with  them. 
Even  the  prosiest  things  are  vivified ;  the  tracks  of 
dirty  feet  on  the  floor  are  flowers  ;  a  creaking  chair 
talks  ;  the  shoemaker's  nails  are  children  whom  he  is 
driving  to  school ;   a  pedlar  is  Santa  Claus. 

Miss  Miriam  Levy  onee  investigated  the  opinions  of  560 


222         THE  TASK  OF   SOCIAL   HYGIENE 

children,  boys  and  girls,  between  the  ages  of  4  and  14,  as 
to  how  the  man  in  the  moon  got  there.  Only  5  were  un- 
able to  offer  a  serious  explanation  ;  48  thought  there 
was  no  man  there  at  all ;  50  offered  a  scientific  explanation 
of  the  phenomena  ;  but  all  the  rest,  the  great  majority, 
presented  imaginative  solutions  which  could  be  grouped 
into  seventeen  different  classes. 

Such  facts  as  these — which  can  easily  be  multiplied 
and  are  indeed  familiar  to  all,  though  their  significance 
is  not  usually  realized — indicate  the  special  tendencies 
of  the  child  in  the  religious  sphere.  He  is  unable  to 
follow  the  distinctions  which  the  adult  is  pleased  to  make 
between  "  real,"  "  spiritual  "  and  "  imaginary  "  beings. 
To  him  such  distinctions  do  not  exist.  He  may,  if  he  so 
pleases,  adopt  the  names  or  such  characteristics  as  he 
chooses,  of  the  beings  he  is  told  about,  but  he  puts  them 
into  his  own  world,  on  a  footing  of  more  or  less  equality, 
and  he  decides  himself  what  their  fate  is  to  be.  The 
adult's  supreme  beings  by  no  means  always  survive  in 
the  struggle  for  existence  which  takes  place  in  the  child's 
imaginative  world.  It  was  found  among  many  thousand 
children  entering  the  city  schools  of  Berlin  that  Red 
Riding  Hood  was  better  known  than  God,  and  Cinderella 
than  Christ.  That  is  the  result  of  the  child's  freedom 
from  the  burden  of  tradition. 

Yet  at  the  same  time  the  opposite  though  allied 
peculiarity  of  childhood — the  absence  of  the  emotional 
developments  of  puberty  which  deepen  and  often  cloud 
the  mind  a  few  years  later — is  also  making  itself  felt. 
Extravagant  as  his  beliefs  may  appear,  the  child  is  an 


RELIGION  AND    THE  CHILD  223 

uncompromising  rationalist  and  realist.  His  supposed 
imaginativeness  is  indeed  merely  the  result  of  his  logical 
insistence  that  all  the  new  phenomena  presented  to  him 
shall  be  thought  of  in  terms  of  himself  and  his  own 
environment.  His  wildest  notions  are  based  on  precise, 
concrete,  and  personal  facts  of  his  own  experience.  That 
is  why  he  is  so  keen  a  questioner  of  grown-up  people's 
ideas,  and  a  critic  who  may  somtimes  be  as  dangerous 
and  destructive  as  Bishop  Colenso's  Zulus.  Most  children 
before  the  age  of  thirteen,  as  Earl  Barnes  states,  are 
inquirers,  if  not  sceptics. 

If  we  clearly  realize  these  characteristics  of  the  childish 
mind,  we  cannot  fail  to  understand  the  impression  made 
on  it  by  religious  instruction.  The  statements  and  stories 
that  are  repeated  to  him  are  easily  accepted  by  the 
child  in  so  far,  and  in  so  far  only,  as  they  answer  to  his 
needs  ;  and  when  accepted  they  are  assimilated,  which 
means  that  they  are  compelled  to  obey  the  laws  of  his 
own  mental  world.  In  so  far  as  the  statements  and 
stories  presented  to  him  are  not  acceptable  or  cannot  be 
assimilated,  it  happens  either  that  they  pass  by  him 
unnoticed,  or  else  that  he  subjects  them  to  a  cold  and 
matter-of-fact  logic  which  exerts  a  dissolving  influence 
upon  them. 

Now  a  few  of  the  ideas  of  religion  are  assimilable  by 
the  child,  and  notably  the  idea  of  a  God  as  the  direct 
agent  in  cosmic  phenomena  ;  some  of  the  childish  notions 
I  have  quoted  illustrate  the  facility  with  which  the  child 
adopts  this  idea.  He  adopts,  that  is,  what  may  be  called 
the  hard  precise  skeleton  of  the  idea,  and  imagines   a 


224        THE   TASK   OF   SOCIAL  HYGIENE 

colossal  magician,  of  anthropomorphic  (if  not  paido- 
morphic)  nature,  whose  operations  are  curious,  though 
they  altogether  fail  to  arouse  any  mysterious  reverence 
or  awe  for  the  agent.  Even  this  is  not  very  satisfactory, 
and  Stanley  Hall,  in  the  spirit  of  Froebel,  considers  that 
the  best  result  is  attained  when  the  child  knows  no  God 
but  his  own  mother.1  But  for  the  most  part  the  ideas 
of  religion  cannot  be  accepted  or  assimilated  by  children 
at  all ;  they  were  not  made  by  children  or  for  children, 
but  represent  the  feelings,  thoughts,  and  experiences  of 
men,  and  sometimes  even  of  very  exceptional  and  ab- 
normal men.  "  The  child,"  it  has  been  said,  "  no  doubt 
has  the  psychical  elements  out  of  which  the  religious 
experience  is  evolved,  just  as  the  seed  has  the  promise 
of  the  fruit  which  will  come  in  the  fullness  of  time.  But 
to  say,  therefore,  that  the  average  child  is  religious,  or 
capable  of  receiving  the  usual  advanced  religious  in- 
struction, is  equivalent  to  saying  that  the  seed  is  the 
fruit  or  capable  of  being  converted  into  fruit  before  the 
fullness  of  time."2  The  child  who  grows  devout  and 
becomes  anxious  about  the  state  of  his  soul  is  a  morbid 

1  "  The  mother's  face  and  voice  are  the  first  conscious  objects  as 
the  infant  soul  unfolds,  and  she  soon  comes  to  stand  in  the  very  place 
of  God  to  her  child.  All  the  religion  of  which  the  child  is  capable 
during  this  by  no  means  brief  stage  of  its  development  consists  of 
these  sentiments — gratitude,  trust,  dependence,  love,  etc. — now  felt 
only  for  her,  which  are  later  directed  towards  God.  The  less  these  are 
now  cultivated  towards  the  mother,  who  is  now  their  only  fitting  if 
not  their  only  possible  object,  the  more  feebly  they  will  later  be  felt 
towards  God.  This,  too,  adds  greatly  to  the  sacredness  of  the  respon- 
sibilities of  motherhood  "  (G.  Stanley  Hall,  Pedagogical  Seminary,  June, 
1891,  p.  199). 

2  J.  Morse,  American  Journal  of  Religious  Psychology,  1911,  p.  247. 


RELIGION   AND   THE   CHILD  225 

and  unwholesome  child  ;  if  he  prefers  praying  for  the 
conversion  of  his  play-fellows  to  joining  them  in  their 
games  he  is  not  so  much  an  example  of  piety  as  a  patho- 
logical case  whose  future  must  be  viewed  with  anxiety ; 
and  to  preach  religious  duties  to  children  is  exactly  the 
same,  it  has  been  well  said,  as  to  exhort  them  to  imagine 
themselves  married  people  and  to  inculcate  on  them  the 
duties  of  that  relation.  Fortunately  the  normal  child 
is  usually  able  to  resist  these  influences.  It  is  the  healthy 
child's  impulse  either  to  let  them  fall  with  indifference 
or  to  apply  to  them  the  instrument  of  his  unmerciful 
logic. 

Naturally,  the  adult,  in  self-defence,  is  compelled  to 
react  against  this  indifferent  or  aggressive  attitude  of 
the  child.  He  may  be  no  match  for  the  child  in  logic,  and 
even  unspeakably  shocked  by  his  daring  inquiries,  like 
an  amiable  old  clergyman  I  knew  when  a  Public  School 
teacher  in  Australia ;  he  went  to  a  school  to  give 
Bible  lessons,  and  was  one  day  explaining  how  King 
David  was  a  man  after  God's  own  heart,  when  a  small 
voice  was  heard  making  inquiries  about  Uriah's  wife  ; 
the  small  boy  was  hushed  down  by  the  shocked  clergy- 
man, and  the  cause  of  religion  was  not  furthered  in  that 
school.  But  the  adult  knows  that  he  has  on  his  side 
tradition  which  has  not  yet  been  acquired  by  the  child, 
and  the  inner  emotional  expansion  which  still  remains 
unliberated  in  the  child.  The  adult,  therefore,  fortified 
by  this  superiority,  feels  justified  in  falling  back  on  the 
weapon  of  authority  :  "  You  may  not  want  to  believe 
this  and  to  learn  it,  but  you've  got  to." 
Q 


226        THE  TASK   OF  SOCIAL  HYGIENE 

It  is  in  this  way  that  the  adult  wins  the  battle  of 
religious  education.  In  the  deeper  and  more  far-seeing 
sense  he  has  lost  it.  Religion  has  become,  not  a  charming 
privilege,  but  a  lesson,  a  lesson  about  unbelievable 
things,  a  meaningless  task  to  be  learnt  by  heart,  a 
drudgery.  It  may  be  said  that  even  if  that  is  so,  religious 
lessons  merely  share  the  inevitable  fate  of  all  subjects 
which  become  school  tasks.  But  that  is  not  the  case. 
Every  other  subject  which  is  likely  to  become  a  school 
task  is  apt  to  become  intelligible  and  attractive  to  some 
considerable  section  of  the  scholars  because  it  is  within 
the  range  of  childish  intelligence.  But,  for  the  two  very 
definite  reasons  I  have  pointed  out,  this  is  only  to  an 
extremely  limited  degree  true  as  regards  the  subject  of 
religion,  because  the  young  organism  is  an  instrument 
not  as  yet  fitted  with  the  notes  which  religion  is  most 
apt  to  strike. 

Of  all  the  school  subjects  religion  thus  tends  to  be  the 
least  attractive.  Lobsien,  at  Kiel,  found  a  few  years 
since,  in  the  course  of  a  psychological  investigation,  that 
when  five  hundred  children  (boys  and  girls  in  equal 
numbers),  between  the  ages  of  nine  and  fourteen,  were 
asked  which  was  their  favourite  lesson  hour,  only  twelve 
(ten  girls  and  two  boys)  named  the  religious  lesson.1 
In  other  words,  nearly  98  per  cent  children  (and  nearly 
all  the  boys)  find  that  religion  is  either  an  indifferent  or 
a  repugnant  subject.  I  have  no  reports  at  hand  as 
regards  English  children,  but  there  is  little  reason 
to    suppose    that   the   result    would    be    widely    differ- 

1  Lobsien,  "  Kinderideale,"  Zeitschrift  fur  Pud.  Psychologie,  1903. 


RELIGION  AND  THE   CHILD  227 

ent.1  Here  and  there  a  specially  skilful  teacher  might 
bring  about  a  result  more  favourable  to  religious 
teaching,  but  that  could  only  be  done  by  depriving  the 
subject  of  its  most  characteristic  elements. 

This  is,  however,  not  by  any  means  the  whole  of  the 
mischief  which,  from  the  religious  point  of  view,  is  thus 
perpetrated.  It  might,  on  a  priori  grounds,  be  plausibly 
argued  that  even  if  there  is  among  healthy  young  children 
a  certain  amount  of  indifference  or  even  repugnance  to 
religious  instruction,  that  is  of  very  little  consequence  ; 
they  cannot  be  too  early  grounded  in  the  principles  of 
the  faith  they  will  later  be  called  on  to  profess ;  and 
however  incapable  they  may  now  be  of  understanding 
the  teaching  that  is  being  inculcated  in  the  school,  they 
will  realize  its  importance  when  their  knowledge  and 
experience  increase.  But  however  plausible  this  may 
seem,  practically  it  is  not  what  usually  happens.  The 
usual   effect    of   constantly    imparting   to   children    an 

1  Mr.  Edmond  Holmes,  formerly  Chief  Inspector  of  Elementary 
Education  in  England,  has  an  instructive  remark  bearing  on  this  point 
in  his  suggestive  book,  What  Is  and  What  Might  be  (191 1,  p.  88)  : 
'*  The  first  forty  minutes  of  the  morning  session  are  given  in  almost 
every  elementary  school  to  what  is  called  Religious  Instruction.  This 
goes  on,  morning  after  morning,  and  week  after  week.  The  fact 
that  the  English  parent,  who  must  himself  have  attended  from  1300 
to  2000  Scripture  lessons  in  his  schooldays,  is  not  under  any  circum- 
stance to  be  trusted  to  give  religious  instruction  to  his  own  children, 
shows  that  those  who  control  the  religious  education  of  the  youthful 
'  masses  '  have  but  little  confidence  in  the  effects  of  their  system  on 
the  religious  life  and  faith  of  the  English  people."  Miss  Harriet 
Finlay- Johnson,  a  highly  original  and  successful  elementary  school 
teacher,  speaks  {The  Dramatic  Method  of  Teaching,  191 1,  p.  170)  with 
equal  disapproval  of  the  notion  that  any  moral  value  attaches  to  the 
ordinary  school  examinations  in  "  Scripture." 


228        THE  TASK   OF  SOCIAL  HYGIENE 

instruction  they  are  not  yet  ready  to  receive  is  to  deaden 
their  sensibilities  to  the  whole  subject  of  religion.1  The 
premature  familiarity  with  religious  influences — putting 
aside  the  rare  cases  where  it  leads  to  a  morbid  pre- 
occupation with  religion — induces  a  reaction  of  routine 
which  becomes  so  habitual  that  it  successfully  withstands 
the  later  influences  which  on  more  virgin  soil  would  have 
evoked  vigorous  and  living  response.  So  far  from  pre- 
paring the  way  for  a  more  genuine  development  of 
religious  impulse  later  on,  this  precocious  sexual  in- 
struction is  just  adequate  to  act  as  an  inoculation  against 
deeper  and  more  serious  religious  interests.  The  common- 
place child  in  later  life  accepts  the  religion  it  has  been 
inured  to  so  early  as  part  of  the  conventional  routine  of 
life.  The  more  vigorous  and  original  child  for  the  same 
reason  shakes  it  off,  perhaps  for  ever. 

Luther,  feeling  the  need  to  gain  converts  to  Protestant- 
ism as  early  as  possible,  was  a  strong  advocate  for  the 
religious  training  of  children,  and  has  doubtless  had 
much  influence  in  this  matter  on  the  Protestant  churches. 
"  The  study  of  religion,  of  the  Bible  and  the  Catechism," 

1  If  it  were  not  so,  England,  after  sixty  years  of  National  Schools, 
ought  to  be  a  devout  nation  of  good  Church  people.  Most  of  the 
criminals  and  outcasts  have  been  taught  in  Church  Schools.  A  clergy- 
man, who  points  this  out  to  me,  adds  :  "  I  am  heartily  thankful  that 
religion  was  never  forced  on  me  as  a  child.  I  do  not  think  I  had  any 
religion,  in  the  ethical  sense,  until  puberty,  or  any  conscious  realization 
of  religion,  indeed,  until  nineteen."  "  The  boy,"  remarks  Holmes 
(op.  cit.,  p.  ioo),  who,  having  attended  two  thousand  Scripture  lessons, 
says  to  himself  when  he  leaves  school  :  '  If  this  is  religion  I  will  have 
no  more  of  it,'  is  acting  in  obedience  to  a  healthy  instinct.  He  is  to 
be  honoured  rather  than  blamed  for  having  realized  at  last  that  the 
chaff  on  which  he  has  so  long  been  fed  is  not  the  life-giving  grain 
which,  unknown  to  himself,  his  inmost  soul  demands." 


RELIGION  AND  THE  CHILD  229 

says  Fiedler,  "  of  course  comes  first  and  foremost  in  his 
scheme  of  instruction."  He  was  also  quite  prepared  to 
adapt  it  to  the  childish  mind.  "  Let  children  be  taught," 
he  writes,  "  that  our  dear  Lord  sits  in  Heaven  on  a 
golden  throne,  that  He  has  a  long  grey  beard  and  a 
crown  of  gold."  But  Luther  quite  failed  to  realize  the 
inevitable  psychological  reaction  in  later  life  against  such 
fairy-tales. 

At  a  later  date,  Rousseau,  who,  like  Luther,  was  on 
the  side  of  religion,  realized,  as  Luther  failed  to  realize, 
the  disastrous  results  of  attempting  to  teach  it  to  children. 
In  La  Nouvelle  HeloYse,  Saint-Preux  writes  that  Julie 
had  explained  to  him  how  she  sought  to  surround  her 
children  with  good  influences  without  forcing  any  re- 
ligious instruction  on  them  :  "  As  to  the  Catechism, 
they  don't  so  much  as  know  what  it  is."  "  What  !  Julie, 
your  children  don't  learn  their  Catechism  ?  "  "  No, 
my  friend,  my  children  don't  learn  their  Catechism." 
"  So  pious  a  mother  !  "  I  exclaimed  ;  "  I  can't  under- 
stand. And  why  don't  your  children  learn  their  Cate- 
chism ?  "  "  In  order  that  they  may  one  day  believe  it. 
I  wish  to  make  Christians  of  them."1 

Since  Rousseau's  day  this  may  be  said  to  be  the  general 
attitude  of  nearly  all  thinkers  who  have  given  attention 
to  the  question,  even  though  they  may  not  have  viewed 
it  psychologically.     It  is  an  attitude  by  no  means  con- 

1  La  Nouvelle  Heloise,  Part  V,  Letter  3.  In  more  recent  times 
Ellen  Key  remarks  in  a  suggestive  chapter  on  "  Religious  Education  " 
in  her  Century  of  the  Child  :  "  Nothing  better  shows  how  deeply 
rooted  religion  is  in  human  nature  than  the  fact  that  '  religious  educa- 
tion '  has  not  been  able  to  tear  it  out." 


230        THE  TASK   OF   SOCIAL   HYGIENE 

fined  to  those  who  are  anxious  that  children  should 
grow  up  to  be  genuine  Christians,  but  is  common  to  all 
who  consider  that  the  main  point  is  that  children  should 
grow  up  to  be,  at  all  events,  genuine  men  and  women.  "  I 
do  not  think,"  writes  John  Stuart  Mill,  in  1868,  "  there 
should  be  any  authoritative  teaching  at  all  on  such  sub- 
jects. I  think  parents  ought  to  point  out  to  their  children, 
when  the  children  begin  to  question  them  or  to  make 
observations  of  their  own,  the  various  opinions  on  such 
subjects,  and  what  the  parents  themselves  think  the 
most  powerful  reasons  for  and  against.  Then,  if  the 
parents  show  a  strong  feeling  of  the  importance  of  truth, 
and  also  of  the  difficulty  of  attaining  it,  it  seems  to  me 
that  young  people's  minds  will  be  sufficiently  prepared 
to  regard  popular  opinion  or  the  opinion  of  those  about 
them  with  respectful  tolerance,  and  may  be  safely  left 
to  form  definite  conclusions  in  the  course  of  mature 
life."1 

There  are  few  among  us  who  have  not  suffered  from 
too  early  familiarity  with  the  Bible  and  the  conceptions 
of  religion.  Even  for  a  man  of  really  strong  and  inde- 
pendent intellect  it  may  be  many  years  before  the  pre- 
cociously dulled  feelings  become  fresh  again,  before  the 
fetters  of  routine  fall  off,  and  he  is  enabled  at  last  to 
approach  the  Bible  with  fresh  receptivity  and  to  realize, 
for  the  first  time  in  his  life,  the  treasures  of  art  and 
beauty  and  divine  wisdom  it  contains.  But  for  most  that 
moment  never  comes  round.  For  the  majority  the 
religious  education  of  the  school  as  effectually  seals  the 

1  J.  S.  Mill,  Letters,  Vol.  II,  p.  135. 


RELIGION   AND  THE   CHILD  231 

Bible  for  life  as  the  classical  education  of  the  college 
seals  the  great  authors  of  Greece  and  Rome  for  life  ; 
no  man  opens  his  school  books  again  when  he  has  once 
left  school.  Those  who  read  Greek  and  Latin  for  love 
have  not  usually  come  out  of  universities,  and  there  is 
surely  a  certain  significance  in  the  fact  that  the  children 
of  one's  secularist  friends  are  so  often  found  to  become 
devout  church-goers,  while,  according  to  the  frequent 
observation,  devout  parents  often  have  most  irreligious 
offspring,  just  as  the  bad  boys  at  school  and  college  are 
frequently  sons  of  the  clergy. 

At  puberty  and  during  adolescence  everything  begins 
to  be  changed.  The  change,  it  is  important  to  remember, 
is  a  natural  change,  and  tends  to  come  about  spontane- 
ously ;  M  where  no  set  forms  have  been  urged,  the 
religious  emotion,"  as  Lancaster  puts  it,  "comes  forth 
as  naturally  as  the  sun  rises."1  That  period,  really  ana 
psychologically,  marks  a  "  new  birth."  Emotions 
which  are  of  fundamental  importance,  not  only  for  the 
individual's  personal  life  but  for  his  social  and  even 
cosmic  relationships,  are  for  the  first  time  born.  Not 
only  is  the  child's  body  remoulded  in  the  form  of  a  man 
or  a  woman,  but  the  child-soul  becomes  a  man-soul  or  a 
woman-soul,  and  nothing  can  possibly  be  as  it  has  been 
before.    The  daringly  sceptical  logician  has  gone,  and  so 

1  Lancaster  found  ("  The  Psychology  and  Pedagogy  of  Adoles- 
cence," Pedagogical  Seminary,  July,  1897)  that  among  59S  individuals 
of  both  sexes  in  the  United  States,  as  many  as  518  experienced  new 
religious  emotions  between  the  ages  of  12  and  20,  only  80  having  no 
such  emotions  at  this  period,  so  that  more  than  5  out  of  6  have  this 
experience  ;  it  is  really  even  more  frequent,  for  it  has  no  necessary 
tendency  to  fall  into  conventional  religious  moulds. 


232        THE  TASK  OF   SOCIAL   HYGIENE 

has  the  imaginative  dreamer  for  whom  the  world  was 
the  automatic  magnifying  mirror  of  his  own  childish 
form  and  environment.  It  has  been  revealed  to  him  that 
there  are  independent  personal  and  impersonal  forces 
outside  himself,  forces  with  which  he  may  come  into 
a  conscious  and  fascinatingly  exciting  relationship.  It 
is  a  revelation  of  supreme  importance,  and  with  it  comes 
not  only  the  complexly  emotional  and  intellectual  reali- 
zation of  personality,  but  the  aptitude  to  enter  into  and 
assimilate  the  traditions  of  the  race. 

It  cannot  be  too  strongly  emphasized  that  this  is  the 
moment,  and  the  earliest  moment,  when  it  becomes 
desirable  to  initiate  the  boy  or  girl  into  the  mysteries  of 
religion.  That  it  is  the  best  moment  is  indicated  by  the 
we-11-recognized  fact  that  the  immediately  post-pubertal 
period  of  adolescence  is  the  period  during  which,  even 
spontaneously,  the  most  marked  religious  phenomena 
tend  to  occur.1  Stanley  Hall  seems  to  think  that  twelve 
is  the  age  at  which  the  cultivation  of  the  religious  con- 
sciousness may  begin ;  "  the  age,  signalized  by  the 
ancient  Greeks  as  that  at  which  the  study  of  what  was 
comprehensively  called  music  should  begin,  the  age  at 
which  Roman  guardianship  ended,  at  which  boys  are 

1  Professor  Starbuck,  in  his  Psychology  of  Religion,  has  well  brought 
together  and  clearly  presented  much  of  the  evidence  showing  this 
intimate  association  between  adolescence  and  religious  manifestations. 
He  finds  (Chap.  Ill)  that  in  females  there  are  two  tidal  waves  of  reli- 
gious awakening,  one  at  about  13,  the  other  at  16,  with  a  less  significant 
period  at  18  ;  for  males,  after  a  wavelet  at  12,  the  great  tidal  wave  is 
at  16,  followed  by  another  at  18  or  19.  Ruediger's  results  are  fairly 
concordant  ("  The  Period  of  Mental  Reconstruction,"  American 
Journal  of  Psychology,  July,  1907)  ;  he  finds  that  in  women  the  average 
age  of  conversion  is  14,  in  men  it  is  at  13  or  14,  and  again  at  18. 


RELIGION   AND   THE   CHILD  233 

confirmed  in  the  modern  Greek,  Catholic,  Lutheran  and 
Episcopal  Churches,  and  at  which  the  Child  Jesus  entered 
the  Temple,  is  as  early  as  any  child  ought  consciously  to 
go  about  his  Heavenly  Father's  business."1  But  I 
doubt  whether  we  can  fix  the  age  definitely  by  years, 
nor  is  it  indeed  quite  accurate  to  assert  that  so  early  an 
age  as  twelve  is  generally  accepted  as  the  age  of  initia- 
tion ;  the  Anglican  Church,  for  example,  usually  con- 
firms at  the  age  of  fifteen.  It  is  not  age  with  which  we 
ought  to  be  concerned,  but  a  biological  epoch  of  psychic 
evolution.  It  is  unwise  to  insist  on  any  particular  age, 
because  development  takes  place  within  a  considerably 
wide  limit  of  years. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  introduction  to  religion  at  puberty 
as  the  initiation  into  a  mystery.  The  phrase  was  deliber- 
ately chosen,  for  it  seems  to  me  to  be  not  a  metaphor, 
but  the  expression  of  a  truth  which  has  always  been 
understood  whenever  religion  has  been  a  reality  and  not 
a  mere  convention.     Among  savages  in  nearly  all  parts 

1  G.  Stanley  Hall,  "  The  Moral  and  Religious  Training  of  Children 
and  Adolescents,"  Pedagogical  Seminary,  June,  1891,  p.  207.  From 
the  more  narrowly  religious  side  the  undesirability  of  attempting  to 
teach  religion  to  children  is  well  set  forth  by  Florence  Hayllar  (Inde- 
pendent Review,  Oct.,  1906).  She  considers  that  thirteen  is  quite  early 
enough  to  begin  teaching  children  the  lessons  of  the  Gospels,  for  a 
child  who  acted  in  accordance  with  the  Gospels  would  be  "  aggravat- 
ing," and  would  generally  be  regarded  as  "  an  insufferable  prig." 
Moreover,  she  points  out,  it  is  dangerous  to  teach  young  children  the 
Christian  virtues  of  charity,  humility,  and  self-denial.  It  is  far  better 
that  they  should  first  be  taught  the  virtues  of  justice  and  courage  and 
self-mastery,  and  the  more  Christian  virtues  later.  She  also  believes 
that  in  the  case  of  the  clergy  who  are  brought  in  contact  with  children 
a  preliminary  course  of  child-study,  with  the  necessary  physiology 
and  psychology,  should  be  compulsory. 


234        THE  TASK   OF   SOCIAL  HYGIENE 

of  the  world  the  boy  or  girl  at  puberty  is  initiated  into 
the  mystery  of  manhood  or  of  womanhood,  into  the 
duties  and  the  privileges  of  the  adult  members  of  the 
tribe.  The  youth  is  taken  into  a  solitary  place,  for  a 
month  or  more,  he  is  made  to  suffer  pain  and  hardship, 
to  learn  self-restraint,  he  is  taught  the  lore  of  the  tribe 
as  well  as  the  elementary  rules  of  morality  and  justice  ; 
he  is  shown  the  secret  things  of  the  tribe  and  their  meaning 
and  significance,  which  no  stranger  may  know.  He  is, 
in  short,  enabled  to  find  his  soul,  and  he  emerges  from 
this  discipline  a  trained  and  responsible  member  of  his 
tribe.  The  girl  receives  a  corresponding  training,  suited 
to  her  sex,  also  in  solitude,  at  the  hands  of  the  older 
women.  A  clear  and  full  description  of  a  typical  savage 
initiation  into  manhood  at  puberty  is  presented  by  Dr. 
Haddon  in  the  fifth  volume  of  the  Reports  of  the  Cambridge 
Anthropological  Expedition  to  Torres  Straits,  and  Dr. 
Haddon  makes  the  comment :  ~  It  is  not  easy  to  con- 
ceive of  more  effectual  means  for  a  rapid  training." 

The  ideas  of  remote  savages  concerning  the  proper 
manner  of  initiating  youth  in  the  religious  and  other 
mysteries  of  life  may  seem  of  little  personal  assistance 
to  superiorly  civilized  people  like  ourselves.  But  let  us 
turn,  therefore,  to  the  Greeks.  They  also  had  preserved 
the  idea  and  the  practice  of  initiation  into  sacred  mys- 
teries, though  in  a  somewhat  modified  form  because 
religion  had  ceased  to  be  so  intimately  blended  with  all 
the  activities  of  life.  The  Eleusinian  and  other  mysteries 
were  initiations  into  sacred  knowledge  and  insight 
which,  as  is  now  recognized,  involved  no  revelation  of 


RELIGION    AND   THE  CHILD  235 

obscure  secrets,  but  were  mysteries  in  the  sense  that  all 
intimate  experiences  of  the  soul,  the  experiences  of  love 
quite  as  much  as  those  of  religion,  are  mysteries,  not  to 
be  lightly  or  publicly  spoken  of.  In  that  feeling  the 
Greek  was  at  one  with  the  Papuan,  and  it  is  interesting 
to  observe  that  the  procedure  of  initiation  into  the  Greek 
mysteries,  as  described  by  Theon  of  Smyrna  and  other 
writers,  followed  the  same  course  as  the  pubertal  initia- 
tions of  savages  ;  there  was  the  same  preliminary  puri- 
fication by  water,  the  same  element  of  doctrinal  teaching, 
the  same  ceremonial  and  symbolic  rubbing  with  sand  or 
charcoal  or  clay,  the  same  conclusion  in  a  joyous  feast, 
even  the  same  custom  of  wearing  wreaths. 

In  how  far  the  Christian  sacraments  were  consciously 
moulded  after  the  model  of  the  Greek  mysteries  is  still 
a  disputed  point  ;x  but  the  first  Christians  were  seeking 
the  same  spiritual  initiation,  and  they  necessarily  adopted, 
consciously  or  unconsciously,  methods  of  procedure 
which,  in  essentials,  were  fundamentally  the  same  as 
those  they  were  already  familiar  with.  The  early  Chris- 
tian Church  adopted  the  rite  of  Baptism  not  merely  as  a 
symbol  of  initiation,  but  as  an  actual  component  part 
of  a  process  of  initiation  ;  the  purifying  ceremony  was 
preceded  by  long  preparation,  and  when  at  last  com- 
pleted the  baptized  were  sometimes  crowned  with 
garlands.  When  at  a  later  period  in  the  history  of  the 
Church  the  physical  part  of  the  initiation  was  divorced 

1  The  varying  opinions  on  this  point  have  been  fairly  and  clearly 
presented  by  Cheetham  in  his  Hulsean  lectures  on  the  Mysteries 
Pagan  and  Christian. 


236        THE  TASK   OF    SOCIAL  HYGIENE 

from  the  spiritual  part,  and  baptism  was  performed  in 
infancy  and  confirmation  at  puberty,  a  fatal  mistake 
was  made,  and  each  part  of  the  rite  largely  lost  its  real 
significance. 

But  it  still  remains  true  that  Christianity  embodied  in 
its  practical  system  the  ancient  custom  of  initiating  the 
young  at  puberty,  and  that  the  custom  exists  in  an 
attenuated  form  in  all  the  more  ancient  Christian 
Churches.  The  rite  of  Confirmation  has,  however,  been 
devitalized,  and  its  immense  significance  has  been 
almost  wholly  lost.  Instead  of  being  regarded  as  a  real 
initiation  into  the  privileges  and  the  responsibilities  of  a 
religious  communion,  of  an  active  fellowship  for  the 
realization  of  a  divine  life  on  earth,  it  has  become  a 
mere  mechanical  corollary  of  the  precedent  rite  of 
baptism,  a  formal  condition  of  participation  in  the 
Sacrament  of  Holy  Communion.  The  splendid  and 
many-sided  discipline  by  which  the  child  of  the  savage 
was  initiated  into  the  secrets  of  his  own  emotional 
nature  and  the  sacred  tradition  of  his  people  has  been 
degraded  into  the  learning  of  a  catechism  and  a  few 
hours'  perfunctory  instruction  in  the  schoolroom  or  in 
the  parlour  of  the  curate's  lodgings.  The  vital  kernel  of 
the  rite  is  decayed  and  only  the  dead  shell  is  left,  while 
some  of  the  Christian  Churches  have  lost  even  the 
shell. 

It  is  extremely  probable  that  in  no  remote  future  the 
State  in  England  will  reject  as  insoluble  the  problem  of 
imparting  religious  instruction  to  the  young  in  its  schools, 
in   accordance  with   a  movement   of  opinion   which   is 


RELIGION   AND  THE  CHILD  237 

taking  place  in  all  civilized  countries.1  The  support 
which  the  Secular  Education  League  has  found  in  the 
most  various  quarters  is  without  doubt  a  fact  of  im- 
pressive significance.2  It  is  well  known  also  that  the 
working  classes — the  people  chiefly  concerned  in  the 
matter — are  distinctly  opposed  to  religious  teaching  in 
State  schools.  There  can  be  little  doubt  that  before 
many  years  have  passed,  in  England  as  elsewhere,  the 
Churches  will  have  to  face  the  question  of  the  best 
methods  of  themselves  undertaking  that  task  of  religious 
training  which  they  have  sought  to  foist  upon  the  State. 
If  they  are  to  fulfil  this  duty  in  a  wise  and  effectual 
manner  they  must  follow  the  guidance  of  biological 
psychology  at  the  point  where  it  is  at  one  with  the 
teaching  of  their  own  most  ancient  traditions,  and 
develop  the  merely  formal  rite  of  confirmation  into  a 
true  initiation  of  the  new-born  soul  at  puberty  into  the 
deepest  secrets  of  life  and  the  highest  mysteries  of 
religion. 

It  must,  of  course,  be  remembered  that,  so  far  as 
England  is  concerned,  we  live  in  an  empire  in  which 

1  Thus  at  the  first  Congress  of  Italian  Women  held  at  Rome  in  1908 
— a  very  representative  Congress,  by  no  means  made  up  of  "  feminists  " 
or  anti-clericals,  and  marked  by  great  moderation  and  good  sense — 
a  resolution  was  passed  against  religious  teaching  in  primary  schools, 
though  a  subsequent  resolution  declared  by  a  very  large  majority  in 
favour  of  teaching  the  history  of  religions  in  secondary  schools.  These 
resolutions  caused  much  surprise  at  the  time  to  those  persons  who 
still  cherish  the  superstition  that  in  matters  of  religion  women  are 
blindly  prejudiced  and  unable  to  think  for  themselves. 

2  See  e.g.  an  article  by  Halley  Stewart,  President  of  the  Secular 
Education  League,  on  "  The  Policy  of  Secular  Education,"  Nineteenth 
Century,  April,  191 1. 


238         THE  TASK  OF  SOCIAL  HYGIENE 

there  are  337  millions  of  people  who  are  not  even 
nominally  Christians,1  and  that  even  among  the  com- 
paratively small  proportion  (about  14  per  cent)  who  call 
themselves  "  Christians,"  a  very  large  proportion  are 
practically  Secularists,  and  a  considerable  number 
avowedly  so.  If,  however,  we  assume  the  Secularist's 
position,  the  considerations  here  brought  forward  still 
retain  their  validity.  In  the  first  place,  the  undoubtedly 
frequent  hostility  of  the  Freethinker  to  Christianity  is 
not  so  much  directed  against  vital  religion  as  against  a 
dead  Church.  The  Freethinker  is  prepared  to  respect 
the  Christian  who  by  free  choice  and  the  exercise  of 
thought  has  attained  the  position  of  a  Christian,  but  he 
resents  the  so-called  Christian  who  is  merely  in  the 
Church  because  he  finds  himself  there,  without  any  effort 
of  his  will  or  his  intelligence.  The  convinced  secularist 
feels  respect  for  the  sincere  Christian,  even  though  it 
may  only  be  in  the  sense  that  the  real  saint  feels  tenderness 
for  the  hopeless  sinner.  And  in  the  second  place,  as  I 
have  sought  to  point  out,  the  facts  we  are  here  concerned 
with  are  far  too  fundamental  to  concern  the  Christian 
alone.  They  equally  concern  the  secularist,  who  also  is 
called  upon  to  satisfy  the  spiritual  hunger  of  the  adolescent 
youth,  to  furnish  him  with  a  discipline  for  his  entry  into 
life,  and  a  satisfying  vision  of  the  universe.  And  if 
secularists  have  not  always  grasped  this  necessity,  we  may 
perhaps  find  therein  one  main  reason  why  secularism 

1  So  far  as  numbers  go,  the  dominant  religion  of  the  British  Empire, 
the  religion  of  the  majority,  is  Hinduism  ;  Mohammedanism  comes 
next. 


RELIGION   AND   THE   CHILD  239 

has  not  met  with  so  enormous  and  enthusiastic  a  recep- 
tion as  the  languor  and  formalism  of  the  churches  seemed 
to  render  possible. 

If  the  view  here  set  forth  is  sound, — a  view  more  and 
more  widely  held  by  educationists  and  by  psychologists 
trained  in  biology, — the  first  twelve  years  must  be  left 
untouched  by  all  conceptions  of  life  and  the  world  which 
transcend  immediate  experience,  for  the  child  whose 
spiritual  virginity  has  been  prematurely  tainted  will  never 
be  able  to  awake  afresh  to  the  full  significance  of  those 
conceptions  when  the  age  of  religion  at  last  arrives.  But 
are  we,  it  may  be  asked,  to  leave  the  child's  restless, 
inquisitive,  imaginative  brain  without  any  food  during 
all  those  early  years  ?  By  no  means.  Even  admitting 
that,  as  it  has  been  said,  at  the  early  stage  religious 
training  is  the  supreme  art  of  standing  out  of  Nature's  way, 
it  is  still  not  hard  to  find  what,  in  this  matter,  the  way  of 
Nature  is.  The  life  of  the  individual  recapitulates 
the  life  of  the  race,  and  there  can  be  no  better  imaginative 
food  for  the  child  than  that  which  was  found  good  in  the 
childhood  of  the  race.  The  child  who  is  deprived  of  fairy 
tales  invents  them  for  himself, — for  he  must  have  them 
for  the  needs  of  his  psychic  growth  just  as  there  is  reason 
to  believe  he  must  have  sugar  for  his  metabolic  growth, — 
but  he  usually  invents  them  badly.1  The  savage  sees  the 

1  "  Not  long  ago,"  says  Dr.  L.  Guthrie  (Clinical  Journal,  7th  June, 
1899),  "  I  heard  of  a  lady  who,  in  her  desire  that  her  children  should 
learn  nothing  but  what  was  true,  banished  fairy  tales  from  her  nursery. 
But  the  children  evolved  from  their  own  imagination  fictions  which 
were  so  appalling  that  she  was  glad  to  divert  them  with  Jack-the- 
Giant-Killer." 


240        THE   TASK    OF   SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

world  almost  exactly  as  the  civilized  child  sees  it,  as  the 
magnified  image  of  himself  and  his  own  environment ; 
but  he  sees  it  with  an  added  poetic  charm,  a  delightful 
and  accomplished  inventiveness  which  the  child  is  in- 
capable of.    The  myths  and  legends  of  primitive  peoples 
— for  instance,  those  of  the  British  Columbian  Indians, 
so  carefully  reproduced  by  Boas  in  German  and  Hill  Tout 
in  English — are  one  in  their  precision  and  their  extrava- 
gance with  the  stories  of  children,  but  with  a  finer  in- 
ventiveness.   It  was,  I  believe,  many  years  ago  pointed 
out  by  Ziller  that  fairy-tales  ought  to  play  a  very  im- 
portant part  in  the  education  of  young  children,  and  since 
then  B.  Hartmann,  Stanley  Hall  and  many  others  of  the 
most  conspicuous  educational  authorities  have  emphasized 
the  same  point.    Fairy  tales  are  but  the  final  and  trans- 
formed versions  of  primitive  myths,   creative  legends, 
stories   of   old   gods.      In   purer   and   less   transformed 
versions   the   myths   and  legends   of  primitive   peoples 
are   often   scarcely   less   adapted   to   the   child's  mind. 
Julia  Gayley  argues  that   the  legends  of  early  Greek 
civilization,  the  most  perfect  of  all  dreams,  should  above 
all  be  revealed  to  children  ;    the  early  traditions  of  the 
East  and  of  America  yield  material  that  is  scarcely  less 
fitted  for  the  child's  imaginative  uses.    Portions  of  the 
Bible,  especially  of  Genesis,  are  in  the  strict  sense  fairy 
tales,  that  is  legends  of  early  gods  and  their  deeds  which 
have  become  stories.     In  the  opinion  of  many  these 
portions  of  the  Bible  may  suitably  be  given  to  children 
(though  it  is  curious  to  observe  that  a  Welsh  Education 
Committee  a  few  years  ago  prohibited  the  reading  in 


RELIGION   AND  THE  CHILD  241 

schools  of  precisely  the  most  legendary  part  of  Genesis)  ; 
but  it  must  always  be  remembered,  from  the  Christian 
point  of  view,  that  nothing  should  be  given  at  this 
early  age  which  is  to  be  regarded  as  essential  at  a  later 
age,  for  the  youth  turns  against  the  tales  of  his  childhood 
as  he  turns  against  its  milk-foods.  Some  day,  perhaps, 
it  may  be  thought  worth  while  to  compile  a  Bible  for 
childhood,  not  a  mere  miscellaneous  assortment  of 
stories,  but  a  collection  of  books  as  various  in  origin  and 
nature  as  are  the  books  of  the  Hebraic-Christian  Bible, 
so  that  every  kind  of  child  in  all  his  moods  and  stages  of 
growth  might  here  find  fit  pasture.  Children  would  not 
then  be  left  wholly  to  the  mercy  of  the  thin  and  frothy 
literature  which  the  contemporary  press  pours  upon  them 
so  copiously  ;  they  would  possess  at  least  one  great  and 
essential  book  which,  however  fantastic  and  extravagant 
it  might  often  be,  would  yet  have  sprung  from  the  deepest 
instincts  of  the  primitive  soul,  and  furnish  answers  to  the 
most  insistent  demands  of  primitive  hearts.  Such  a 
book,  even  when  finally  dropped  from  the  youth's  or 
girl's  hands,  would  still  leave  its  vague  perfume  behind. 
It  may  be  pointed  out,  finally,  that  the  fact  that  it  is 
impossible  to  teach  children  even  the  elements  of  adult 
religion  and  philosophy,  as  well  as  unwise  to  attempt  it, 
by  no  means  proves  that  all  serious  teaching  is  impossible 
in  childhood.  On  the  imaginative  and  spiritual  side,  it  is 
true,  the  child  is  re-born  and  transformed  during  ado- 
lescence, but  on  the  practical  and  concrete  side  his  life 
and  thought  are  for  the  most  part  but  the  regular  and 
orderly  development  of  the  habits  he  has  already  acquired. 


242        THE   TASK    OF   SOCIAL   HYGIENE 

The  elements  of  ethics  on  the  one  hand,  as  well  as  of 
natural  science  on  the  other,  may  alike  be  taught  to 
children,  and  indeed  they  become  a  necessary  part  of 
early  education,  if  the  imaginative  side  of  training  is  to 
be  duly  balanced  and  complemented.  The  child  as  much 
as  the  adult  can  be  taught,  and  is  indeed  apt  to  learn, 
the  meaning  and  value  of  truth  and  honesty,  of  justice 
and  pity,  of  kindness  and  courtesy  ;  we  have  wrangled 
and  worried  for  so  long  concerning  the  teaching  of 
religion  in  schools  that  we  have  failed  altogether  to 
realize  that  these  fundamental  notions  of  morality 
are  a  far  more  essential  part  of  school  training.  It  must, 
however,  always  be  remembered  that  they  cannot  be 
adequately  treated  merely  as  an  isolated  subject  of 
instruction,  and  possibly  ought  not  to  be  so  treated  at 
all.  As  Harriet  Finlay- Johnson  wisely  says  in  her 
Dramatic  Method  of  Instruction :  "  It  is  impossible  to 
shut  away  moral  teaching  into  a  compartment  of  the 
mind.  It  should  be  firmly  and  openly  diffused  throughout 
the  thoughts,  to  '  leaven  the  whole  of  the  lump.'  "  She 
adds  the  fruitful  suggestion  :  "  There  is  real  need  for 
some  lessons  in  which  the  emotions  shall  not  be  ignored. 
Nature  study,  properly  treated,  can  touch  both  senses 
and  emotions."1 

1  In  his  interesting  study  of  comparative  education  {The  Making 
of  Citizens,  1902,  p.  194),  Mr.  R.  E.  Hughes,  a  school  inspector,  after 
discussing  the  methods  of  settling  the  difficulties  of  religious  education 
in  England,  America,  Germany,  and  France,  reasonably  concludes  : 
"  The  solution  of  the  religious  problem  of  the  schools  of  these  four 
peoples  lies  in  the  future,  but  we  believe  it  will  be  found  not  to  be 
beyond  human  ingenuity  to  devise  a  scheme  of  moral  and  ethical 
training  for  little  children  which  will  be  suitable.      It  is  the  moral 


RELIGION   AND   THE   CHILD  243 

The  child  is  indeed  quite  apt  to  acquire  a  precise 
knowledge  of  the  natural  objects  around  him,  of  flowers 
and  plants  and  to  some  extent  of  animals,  objects  which 
to  the  savage  also  are  of  absorbing  interest.  In  this  way, 
under  wise  guidance,  the  caprices  of  his  imagination 
may  be  indirectly  restrained  and  the  lessons  of  life  taught, 
while  at  the  same  time  he  is  thus  being  directly  prepared 
for  the  serious  studies  which  must  occupy  so  much  of  his 
later  youth. 

The  child,  we  thus  have  to  realize,  is,  from  the  educa- 
tional point  of  view  of  social  hygiene,  a  being  of  dual 
nature,  who  needs  ministering  to  on  both  sides.  On 
the  one  hand  he  demands  the  key  to  an  imaginative 
paradise  which  one  day  he  must  leave,  bearing  away 
with  him,  at  the  best,  only  a  dim  and  haunting  memory 
of  its  beauty.  On  the  other  hand  he  possesses  eager 
aptitudes  on  which  may  be  built  up  concrete  knowledge 
and  the  sense  of  human  relationships,  to  serve  as  a  firm 
foundation  when  the  period  of  adolescent  development 
and  discipline  at  length  arrives. 

principles  underlying  all  conduct  which  the  school  should  teach. 
Indeed,  the  school,  to  justify  its  existence,  dare  not  neglect  them. 
It  will  teach  them,  not  dogmatically  or  by  precept,  but  by  example, 
and  by  the  creation  of  a  noble  atmosphere  around  the  child."  Holmes 
also  (op.  cit.,  p.  276)  insists  that  the  teaching  of  patriotism  and  citizen- 
ship must  be  informal  and  indirect. 


VIII 
THE    PROBLEM    OF    SEXUAL    HYGIENE 

The  New  Movement  for  giving  Sexual  Instruction  to  Children — The 
Need  of  such  a  Movement — Contradictions  involved  by  the  Ancient 
Policy  of  Silence — Errors  of  the  New  Policy — The  Need  of  Teaching 
the  Teacher — The  Need  of  Training  the  Parents — And  of  Scienti- 
fically equipping  the  Physician — Sexual  Hygiene  and  Society — 
The  far-reaching  Effects  of  Sexual  Hygiene. 

IT  is  impossible  to  doubt  the  vitality  and  the  vigour 
of  the  new  movement  of  sexual  hygiene,  especially 
that  branch  of  it  concerned  with  the  instruction 
of  children  in  the  essential  facts  of  life.1  In  the  eighteenth 
century  the  great  educationist,  Basedow,  was  almost 
alone  when,  by  practice  and  by  precept,  he  sought  to 
establish  this  branch  of  instruction  in  schools.2  A  few 
years  ago,  when  the  German  Diirer  Bund  offered  prizes 
for  the  best  essays  on  the  training  of  the  young  in  matters 
of  sex,  as  many  as  five  hundred  papers  were  sent  in.3 
We  may  say  that  during  the  past  ten  years  more  has  been 

1  For  a  full  discussion  of  the  movement,  see  Havelock  Ellis,  Studies 
in  the  Psychology  of  Sex,  Vol.  VI,  "  Sex  in  Eelation  to  Society,"  chaps. 
ii  and  hi. 

*  Basedow  (born  at  Hamburg  1723,  died  1790)  set  forth  his  views 
on  sexual  education — which  will  seem  to  many  somewhat  radical  and 
advanced  even  to-day — in  his  great  treatise  Elementarwerk  (1774). 
His  practical  educational  work  is  dealt  with  by  Pinloche,  La  Riforme 
de  V Education  en  Allemagne  au  Dix-liuitiime  Siicle. 

3  The  best  of  these  papers  have  been  printed  in  a  volume  entitled 
Am  Lebensquell. 

244 


THE    PROBLEM    OF    SEXUAL    HYGIENE    245 

done  to  influence  popular  feeling  on  this  question  than 
during  the  whole  of  the  preceding  century. 

Whenever  we  witness  a  sudden  impulse  of  zeal  and 
enthusiasm  to  rush  into  a  new  channel,  however  admirable 
the  impulse  may  be,  we  must  be  prepared  for  many  risks 
and  perhaps  even  a  certain  amount  of  damage.  This  is, 
indeed,  especially  the  case  when  we  are  concerned  with  a 
new  activity  in  the  sphere  of  sex.  The  sexual  relation- 
ships of  life  are  so  ancient  and  so  wide,  their  roots  ramify 
so  complexly  and  run  so  deep,  that  any  sudden  dis- 
turbance in  this  soil,  however  well-intentioned,  is  certain 
to  have  many  results  which  were  not  anticipated  by 
those  responsible  for  it.  Any  movement  here  runs  the 
risk  of  defeating  its  own  ends,  or  else,  in  gaining  them,  to 
render  impossible  other  ends  which  are  of  not  less  value. 

In  this  matter  of  sexual  hygiene  we  are  faced  at  the 
outset  by  the  fact  that  the  very  recognition  of  any 
such  branch  of  knowledge  as  "  sexual  hygiene  "  involves 
not  merely  a  new  departure,  but  the  reversal  of  a  policy 
which  has  been  accepted,  almost  without  question,  for 
centuries.  Among  many  primitive  peoples,  indeed,  we 
know  that  the  boy  and  girl  at  puberty  are  initiated  with 
solemnity,  and  even  a  not  unwholesome  hardship,  into 
the  responsibilities  of  adult  life,  including  those  which 
have  reference  to  the  duties  and  privileges  of  sex.1  But 
in  our  own  traditions  scarcely  even  a  relic  of  any  such 
custom  is  preserved.    On  the  contrary,  we  tacitly  main- 

1  The  elaborate  and  admirable  initiation  of  boys  among  the  natives 
oi  Torres  Straits  furnishes  a  good  example  of  this  education,  and  has 
been  fully  described  by  Dr.  A.  C.  Haddon,  Reports  of  the  Anthropo- 
logical Expedition  to  Torres  Straits,  Vol.  V,  chaps,  vn  and  xn. 


246        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

tain  a  custom,  and  even  a  policy,  of  silent  obscurantism. 
Parents  and  teachers  have  considered  it  a  duty  to  say 
nothing  and  have  felt  justified  in  telling  lies,  or  "  fairy 
tales,"  in  order  to  maintain  their  attitude.  The  oncoming 
of  puberty,  with  its  alarming  manifestations,  especially 
in  the  girl,  has  often  left  them  unmoved  and  still  silent. 
They  have  taken  care  that  our  elementary  textbooks 
of  anatomy  and  physiology,  even  when  written  by  so 
independent  and  fearless  a  pioneer  as  Huxley,  should 
describe  the  human  body  absolutely  as  though  the 
organs  and  functions  of  reproduction  had  no  existence. 
The  instinct  was  not  thus  suppressed ;  all  the  inevitable 
stimulations  which  life  furnishes  to  the  youthful 
sexual  impulse  have  continued  in  operation.1  Sexual 
activities  were  just  as  liable  to  break  out.  They  were 
all  the  more  liable  to  break  out,  indeed,  because  fostered 
by  ignorance,  often  unconscious  of  themselves,  and  not 
held  in  check  by  the  restraints  which  knowledge  and  teach- 
ing might  have  furnished.  This,  however,  has  seemed  a 
matter  of  no  concern  to  the  guardians  of  youth.  They 
have  congratulated  themselves  if  they  could  pilot  the 
youths,  and  especially  the  maidens,  under  their  guardian- 
ship into  the  haven  of  matrimony  not  only  in  apparent 

1  Moll  in  his  wise  and  comprehensive  work,  The  Sexual  Life  of  the 
Child  (German  ed.,  p.  225),  lays  it  down  emphatically  that  "  we  must 
clearly  realize  at  the  outset  that  the  complete  exclusion  of  sexual  stimuli 
in  the  education  of  children  is  impossible."  He  adds  that  the  demands 
made  by  some  "  fanatics  of  hygiene  "  would  be  dangerous  even  if  they 
were  practicable.  Games  and  physical  exercises  induce  in  many 
cases  a  considerable  degree  of  sexual  stimulation.  But  this  need  not 
cause  us  undue  alarm,  nor  must  we  thereby  be  persuaded  to  change 
our  policy  of  recommending  such  games  and  exercises. 


THE    PROBLEM    OF    SEXUAL    HYGIENE   247 

chastity,  but  in  ignorance  of  nearly  everything  that 
marriage  signifies  and  involves,  alike  for  the  individual 
and  the  coming  race. 

This  policy  has  been  so  firmly  established  that  the 
theory  of  it  has  never  been  clearly  argued  out.  So 
far  as  it  exists  at  all,  it  is  a  theory  that  walks  on  two 
feet  pointing  opposite  ways  :  sex  things  must  not  be 
talked  about  because  they  are  "  dirty  "  ;  sex  things 
must  not  be  talked  about  because  they  are  "  sacred." 
We  must  leave  sex  things  alone,  they  say,  because  God  will 
see  to  it  that  they  manifest  themselves  aright  and  work 
for  good  ;  we  must  leave  sex  things  alone,  they  also  say, 
because  there  is  no  department  in  life  in  which  the 
activity  of  the  Devil  is  so  specially  exhibited.  The  very 
same  person  may  be  guilty  of  this  contradiction,  when 
varying  circumstances  render  it  convenient.  Such  a 
confusion  is,  indeed,  a  fate  liable  to  befall  all  ancient 
and  deeply  rooted  tabus ;  we  see  it  in  the  tabus  against 
certain  animals  as  foods  (as  the  Mosaic  prohibition  of 
pork)  ;  at  first  the  animal  was  too  sacred  to  eat,  but  in 
time  people  came  to  think  that  it  is  too  disgusting  to  eat. 
They  begin  the  practice  for  one  reason,  they  continue  it 
for  a  totally  opposed  reason.  Reasons  are  such  a  super- 
ficial part  of  our  lives  ! 

Thus  every  movement  of  sexual  hygiene  necessarily 
clashes  against  an  established  convention  which  is  itself 
an  inharmonious  clash  of  contradictory  notions.  This  is 
especially  the  case  if  sexual  hygiene  is  introduced  by 
way  of  the  school.  It  is  very  widely  held  by  many  who 
accept  the  arguments  so  ably  set  forth  by  Frau  Maria 


248        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

Lischnewska,  that  the  school  is  not  only  the  best  way  of 
introducing  sexual  hygiene,  but  the  only  possible  way, 
since  through  this  channel  alone  is  it  possible  to  employ 
an  antidote  to  the  evil  influences  of  the  home  and  the 
world.1  Yet  to  teach  children  what  some  of  their  parents 
consider  as  too  sacred  to  be  taught,  and  others  as  too 
disgusting,  and  to  begin  this  teaching  at  an  age  when 
the  children,  having  already  imbibed  these  parental 
notions,  are  old  enough  to  be  morbidly  curious  and 
prurient,  is  to  open  the  way  to  a  complicated  series  of 
social  reactions  which  demand  great  skill  to  adjust. 

Largely,  no  doubt,  from  anxiety  to  counterbalance 
these  dangers,  there  has  been  a  tendency  to  emphasize, 
or  rather  to  over-emphasize,  the  moral  aspects  of  sexual 
hygiene.  Rightly  considered,  indeed,  it  is  not  easy  to 
over-value  its  moral  significance.  But  in  the  actual 
teaching  of  such  hygiene  it  is  quite  easy,  and  the  error  is 
often  found,  to  make  statements  and  to  affirm  doctrines 
— all  in  the  interests  of  good  morals  and  with  the  object 
of  exhibiting  to  the  utmost  the  beneficial  tendencies  of 
this  teaching — which  are  dubious  at  the  best  and  often  at 

1  See  Frau  Maria  Lischnewska's  excellent  pamphlet,  Geschlechtliche 
Belehrung  der  Kinder,  first  published  in  Mutterschutz,  1905,  Heft  4 
and  5.  This  is  perhaps  the  ablest  statement  of  the  argument  in  favour 
of  giving  the  chief  place  in  sexual  hygiene  to  the  teacher.  Frau  Lis- 
chnewska recognizes  three  factors  in  the  movement  for  freeing  the 
sexual  activities  from  degradation  :  (1)  medical,  (2)  economic,  and 
(3)  rational.  But  it  is  the  last — in  the  broadest  sense  as  a  compre- 
hensive process  of  enlightenment — which  she  regards  as  the  chief. 
"  The  views  and  sentiments  of  people  must  be  changed,"  she  says. 
"  The  civilized  man  must  learn  to  gaze  at  this  piece  of  Nature  with 
pure  eyes ;  reverence  towards  it  must  early  sink  into  his  soul.  In  the 
absence  of  this  fundamental  renovation,  medical  and  social  measures 
will  merely  produce  refined  animals." 


THE    PROBLEM    OF    SEXUAL    HYGIENE    249 

variance  with  actual  experience.  In  such  cases  we  seem 
to  see  that  the  sexual  hygienist  has  indeed  broken  with 
the  conventional  conspiracy  of  silence  in  these  matters, 
but  he  has  not  broken  with  the  conventional  morality 
which  grew  out  of  that  ignorant  silence.  With  the  best 
intention  in  the  world  he  sets  forth,  dogmatically  and 
without  qualification,  ancient  half-truths  which  to  become 
truly  moral  need  to  be  squarely  faced  with  their  comple- 
mentary half-truths.  The  inevitable  danger  is  that  the 
pupil  sooner  or  later  grasps  the  one-sided  exaggeration 
of  this  teaching,  and  the  credit  of  the  sexual  hygienist  is 
gone.  Life  is  an  art,  and  love,  which  lies  at  the  heart  of 
life,  is  an  art ;  they  are  not  science  ;  they  cannot  be 
converted  into  clear-cut  formulae  and  taught  as  the 
multiplication  table  is  taught.  Example  here  counts 
for  more  than  precept,  and  practice  teaches  more  than 
either,  provided  it  is  carried  on  in  the  light  of  precept  and 
example.  The  rash  and  unqualified  statements  con- 
cerning the  immense  benefits  of  continence,  or  the  awful 
results  of  self-abuse,  etc.,  frequently  found  in  books  for 
young  people  will  occur  to  every  one.  Stated  with 
wise  moderation  they  would  have  been  helpful.  Pushed 
to  harsh  extravagance  they  are  not  only  useless  to  aid 
the  young  in  their  practical  difficulties,  but  become  mis- 
chievous by  the  injury  they  inflict  on  over-sensitive 
consciences,  fearful  of  falling  short  of  high-strung  ideals. 
This  consideration  brings  us,  indeed,  to  what  is  perhaps 
the  chief  danger  in  the  introduction  of  any  teaching  of 
sexual  hygiene  :  the  fact  that  our  teachers  are  themselves 
untaught.    Sexual  hygiene  in  the  full  sense — in  so  far  as 


250        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

it  concerns  individual  action  and  not  the  regulative 
or  legislative  action  of  communities — is  the  art  of  im- 
parting such  knowledge  as  is  needed  at  successive  stages 
by  the  child,  the  youth  and  maiden,  the  young  man  and 
woman,  in  order  to  enable  them  to  deal  rightly,  and  so 
far  as  possible  without  injury  either  to  themselves  or  to 
others,  with  all  those  sexual  events  to  which  every  one 
is  naturally  liable.  To  fulfil  his  functions  adequately 
the  master  in  the  art  of  teaching  sexual  hygiene  must 
answer  to  three  requirements  :  (i)  he  must  have  a  sufficing 
knowledge  of  the  facts  of  sexual  psychology,  sexual 
physiology,  and  sexual  pathology,  knowledge  which,  in 
many  important  respects,  hardly  existed  at  all  until 
recently,  and  is  only  now  beginning  to  become  generally 
accessible  ;  (2)  he  must  have  a  wise  and  broad  moral 
outlook,  with  a  sane  idealism  which  refrains  from  de- 
manding impossibilities,  and  resolutely  thrusts  aside 
not  only  the  vulgar  platitudes  of  worldliness,  but  the 
equally  mischievous  platitudes  of  an  outworn  and  insin- 
cere asceticism,  for  the  wise  sexual  hygienist  knows,  with 
Pascal,  that  "  he  who  tries  to  be  an  angel  becomes  a 
beast,"  and  is  less  anxious  to  make  his  pupils  ineffective 
angels  than  effective  men  and  women,  content  to  say  with 
Browning,  "  I  may  put  forth  angels'  pinions,  once 
unmanned,  but  not  before  "  ;  (3)  in  addition  to  sound 
knowledge  and  a  wise  moral  outlook,  the  sexual  hygienist 
must  possess,  finally,  a  genuine  sympathy  with  the  young, 
an  insight  into  their  sensitive  shyness,  a  comprehension 
of  their  personal  difficulties,  and  the  skill  to  speak  to 
them  simply,  frankly,  and  humanly.    If  we  ask  ourselves 


THE    PROBLEM    OF    SEXUAL    HYGIENE    251 

how  many  of  the  apostles  of  sexual  hygiene  combine 
these  three  essential  qualities,  we  shall  probably  not  be 
able  to  name  many,  while  we  may  suspect  that  some  do 
not  even  possess  one  of  the  three  qualifications.  If  we 
further  consider  that  the  work  of  sexual  hygiene,  to  be 
carried  out  on  a  really  national  scale,  demands  the  more 
or  less  active  co-operation  of  parents,  teachers,  and 
doctors,  and  that  parents,  teachers,  and  doctors  are 
in  these  matters  at  present  all  alike  untrained,  and  usually 
prejudiced,  we  shall  realize  some  of  the  dangers  through 
which  sexual  hygiene  must  at  first  pass. 

It  is,  I  hope,  unnecessary  for  me  to  say  that,  in  thus 
pointing  out  some  of  the  difficulties  and  the  risks  which 
must  assail  every  attempt  to  introduce  an  element  of 
effective  sexual  hygiene  into  life,  I  am  far  from  wishing 
to  argue  that  it  is  better  to  leave  things  as  they  are. 
That  is  impossible,  not  only  because  we  are  realizing 
that  our  system  of  incomplete  silence  is  mischievous,  but 
because  it  is  based  on  a  confusion  which  contains  within 
itself  the  elements  of  disruption.  We  have  to  remember, 
however,  that  the  creation  of  a  new  tradition  cannot  be 
effected  in  a  day.  Before  we  begin  to  teach  sexual  hygiene 
the  teachers  must  themselves  be  taught. 

There  are  many  who  have  insisted,  and  not  without 
reason,  on  the  right  of  the  parent  to  control  the  educa- 
tion of  the  child.  Sexual  hygiene  introduces  us  to  another 
right,  the  right  of  the  child  to  control  the  education  of 
the  parents.  For  few  parents  to-day  are  fitted  to  exercise 
the  duty  of  training  and  guiding  the  child  in  the  difficult 
field  of  sex  without   preliminary   education,    and  such 


252        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

education,  to  be  real  and  effective,  must  begin  at  an 
early  age  in  the  parents'  life.1 

The  school  teacher,  again,  on  whom  so  many  rely 
for  the  initial  stage  in  sexual  hygiene,  is  at  present  often 
in  almost  exactly  the  same  stage  of  ignorance  or  prejudice 
in  these  matters  as  his  or  her  pupils.  The  teacher  has 
seldom  been  trained  to  impart  even  the  most  elementary 
scientific  knowledge  of  the  facts  of  sex,  of  reproduction, 
and  of  sexual  hygiene,  and  is  more  often  than  not  without 
that  personal  experience  of  life  in  its  various  aspects 
which  is  required  in  order  to  teach  wisely  in  such  a  diffi- 
cult field  as  that  of  sex,  even  if  the  principle  is  admitted 
that  the  teacher  in  class,  equally  whether  addressing  one 
sex  or  both  sexes,  is  not  called  upon  to  go  beyond  the 
scientific,  abstract,  and  objective  aspects  of  sex. 

This  difficulty  of  the  lack  of  suitable  teachers  is  not, 
indeed,  insuperable.  It  would  be  largely  settled,  no  doubt, 
if  a  wise  and  thorough  course  of  sexual  hygiene  and  pueri- 
culture  formed  part  of  the  training  of  all  school  teachers,  as, 
in  France,  Pinard  has  proposed  for  the  Normal  schools  for 
young  women.  Dr.  W.  O.  Henry,  in  a  paper  read  before 
the  Nebraska  State  Medical  Association  in  May,  1911,  put 
forward  the  proposal :  "  Let  each  State  have  one  or  more 
competent  physicians  whose  duty  it  shall  be  to  teach 

1  "  We  parents  of  to-day,"  as  Henriette  Furth  truly  says  ("  Erotik 
und  Elternpflicht,"  Am  Lebensquell,  p.  n),  "have  not  yet  attained 
that  beautiful  naturalness  out  of  which  in  these  matters  simplicity 
and  freedom  grow.  And  however  willing  we  may  be  to  learn  afresh, 
most  of  us  have  so  far  lost  our  inward  freedom  from  prejudice — the 
standpoint  of  the  pure  to  whom  all  things  are  pure — that  we  cannot 
acquire  it  again.  We  parents  of  to-day  have  been  altogether  wrongly 
brought  up.  The  inoculated  feeling  of  shame  still  remains  even  after 
we  have  recognized  that  shame  in  this  connection  is  false." 


THE    PROBLEM    OF    SEXUAL    HYGIENE    253 

these  things  to  the  children  in  all  the  public  schools 
of  the  State  from  the  time  they  are  eight  years  of  age. 
The  boys  and  girls  should  be  given  the  instruction 
separately  by  means  of  charts,  pictures,  and  stereopticon 
views,  beginning  with  the  lower  forms  of  life,  flowers, 
plants,  and  then  closing  with  the  organs  in  man.  These 
lectures  and  illustrations  should  be  given  every  year  to 
all  the  boys  and  girls  separately,  having  those  from  eight 
to  ten  together  at  one  time,  and  those  from  ten  to  twelve, 
and  those  from  over  twelve  to  sixteen."  Dr.  Henry  was 
evidently  not  aware  that  the  principle  of  a  special  teacher 
appointed  by  Government  to  give  special  instruction  in 
matters  of  sex  in  all  State  schools  had  already  been  adopted 
in  Canada,  in  the  province  of  Ontario ;  the  teacher  thus 
appointed  goes  from  school  to  school  and  teaches  the 
elements  of  sexual  physiology  and  anatomy,  and  the 
duty  of  treating  sexual  matters  with  reverence,  to 
classes  of  boys  and  of  girls  from  the  age  of  ten.  The 
course  is  not  compulsory,  but  any  School  Board  may 
call  upon  the  special  teacher  to  deliver  the  lectures. 
This  appointment  has  met  with  so  much  approval  that 
it  is  proposed  to  appoint  further  teachers  on  the  same 
lines,  women  as  well  as  men. 

It  is  not  necessary  that  the  school  teacher  of  sex 
should  be  a  physician.  For  personal  and  particular  advice 
on  the  concrete  difficulties  of  sex,  however,  as  well  as  for 
the  more  special  and  detailed  hygiene  of  the  sexual 
relationship  and  the  precautions  demanded  by  eugenics, 
we  must  call  in  the  physician.  Yet  none  of  these  things 
so  far  enter  the  curriculum  through  which  the  physician 


254        THE    TASK    0F    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

passes  to  reach  his  profession  ;  he  is  often  only  a  layman 
in  relation  to  them.  Even  if  we  are  assured  that  these 
subjects  form  part  of  his  scientific  equipment,  that  fact 
by  no  means  guarantees  his  tact,  sympathy,  and  insight 
in  addressing  the  young,  whether  by  general  lectures  or 
individual  interviews,  both  these  being  forms  of  impart- 
ing sexual  hygiene  for  which  we  may  properly  call  upon 
the  physician,  especially  towards  the  end  of  the  school 
or  college  course,  and  at  the  outset  of  any  career  in  the 
world.1 

Undoubtedly  we  have  amongst  us  many  mothers, 
teachers,  and  physicians  who  are  admirably  equipped 
to  fulfil  their  respective  parts — elementary,  secondary, 
and  advanced — in  the  work  of  sexual  hygiene.  But  so 
long  as  they  are  few  and  far  apart  their  influence  is 
negatived,  if  it  is  not  even  rendered  harmful. 

It  must  often  be  useless  for  a  mother  to  instil  into  her 
little  boy  respect  for  his  own  body,  reverence  for  the 
channel  of  motherhood  through  which  he  entered  the 
world,  any  sense  of  the  purity  of  natural  functions 
or  the  beauty  of  natural  organs,  if  outside  his  home 
the  little  boy  finds  that  all  other  little  boys  and  girlo 

1  The  method  of  imparting  a  knowledge  of  sexual  hygiene  (especi- 
ally in  relation  to  venereal  diseases)  at  the  outset  of  adult  life  has 
most  actively  been  carried  out  in  Germany  and  the  United  States. 
In  Germany  lectures  by  doctors  to  students  and  others  on  these  matters 
are  frequently  given.  In  the  United  States  information  and  advice 
are  spread  abroad  chiefly  by  the  aid  of  societies.  The  American 
Society  of  Sanitary  and  Moral  Prophylaxis,  with  which  the  name  of 
Dr.  Morrow  is  specially  connected,  was  organized  in  1905.  The  Chicago 
Society  of  Social  Hygiene  was  established  in  1906.  Since  then  many 
other  similar  societies  have  sprung  up  under  medical  auspices  in  various 
American  cities  and  states. 


THE    PROBLEM    OF    SEXUAL    HYGIENE    255 

regard  these  things  as  only  an  occasion  for  sniggering. 
It  is  idle  for  the  teacher  to  describe  plainly  the  scientific 
facts  of  sex  as  a  marvellous  culmination  in  the  natural 
unfolding  of  the  world  if,  outside  the  schoolroom,  the 
pupil  finds  that,  in  the  newspapers  and  in  the  general 
conversation  of  adults,  this  sacred  temple  is  treated  as  a 
common  sewer,  too  filthy  to  be  spoken  of,  and  that  the 
books  which  contain  even  the  most  necessary  descriptions 
of  it  are  liable  to  be  condemned  as  "  obscene  "  in  the  law 
courts.1  It  is  vain  for  the  physician  to  explain  to  young 
men  and  women  the  subtle  and  terrible  nature  of  venereal 
poisons,  to  declare  the  right  and  the  duty  of  both  partners 
in  marriage  to  know,  authoritatively  and  beforehand,  the 
state  of  each  other's  health,  or  to  warn  them  that  a 
proper  sense  of  responsibility  towards  the  race  must 
prevent  some  ill-born  persons  from  marrying,  or  at  all 
events  from  procreating,  if  the  young  man  and  woman 
find,  on  leaving  the  physician,  that  their  acquaintances 
are  prepared  to  accept  all  these  risks,  light-heartedly,  in 
the  dark,  in  a  heedless  dream  from  which  they  somehow 
hope  there  will  be  no  awful  awakening. 

The  moral  to  which  these  observations  point  is  fairly 
clear.  Sex  penetrates  the  whole  of  life.  It  is  not  a 
branch  of  mathematics,  or  a  period  of  ancient  history, 
which  we  can  elect  to  teach,  or  not  to  teach,  as  may  seem 
best  to  us,  which  if  we  teach  we  may  teach  as  we  choose, 
and  if  we  neglect  to  teach  it  will  never  trouble  us.  Love 
and  Hunger  are  the  foundations  of  life,  and  the  impulse 

1  Many  flagrant  cases  in  point  are  set  forth  from  the  legal  point  of 
view  by  Theodore  Schroeder,  "  Obscene  "  Literature  and  Constitutional 
Law,  New  York,  191 1,  chap.  rv. 


256        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

of  sex  is  just  as  fundamental  as  the  impulse  of  nutrition. 
It  will  not  remain  absent  because  we  refuse  to  call  for  its 
presence,  it  will  not  depart  because  we  find  its  presence 
inconvenient.  At  the  most  it  will  only  change  its  shape, 
and  mock  at  us  from  beneath  masks  so  degraded,  and 
sometimes  so  exalted,  that  we  are  no  longer  able  to 
recognize  it. 

"  People  are  always  writing  about  education,"  said 
Chamfort  more  than  a  century  ago,  "  and  their  writings 
have  led  to  some  valuable  methods.  But  what  is  the 
use,  unless  side  by  side  with  the  introduction  of  such 
methods,  corresponding  reforms  are  not  introduced  in 
legislation,  in  religion,  in  public  opinion  ?  The  only 
object  of  education  is  to  conform  the  child's  reason 
to  that  of  the  community.  But  if  there  is  no  correspond- 
ing reform  in  the  community,  by  training  the  child  to 
reason  you  are  merely  training  him  to  see  the  absurdity 
of  opinions  and  customs  consecrated  by  the  seal  of 
sacred  authority,  public  or  legislative,  and  you  are 
inspiring  him  with  contempt  of  them."1  We  cannot  too 
often  meditate  on  these  wise  words. 

It  is  useless  to  attempt  to  introduce  sexual  hygiene  as  a 
subject  apart,  and  in  some  respects  it  may  be  dangerous. 
When  we  touch  sex  we  are  touching  sensitive  fibres  which 
thrill  through  the  whole  of  our  social  organism,  just  as  the 
touch  of  love  thrills  through  the  whole  of  the  bodily 
organism.  Any  vital  reform  here,  any  true  introduc- 
tion of  sexual  hygiene  to  replace  our  traditional  policy 
of  confused  silence,  affects  the  whole  of  life  or  it  affects 

1  Chamfort,  (Euvres  Choisies,  ed.  by  Lescure,  Vol.  I,  p.  33. 


THE    PROBLEM    OF    SEXUAL    HYGIENE   257 

nothing.  It  will  modify  our  social  conventions,  enter  our 
family  life,  transform  our  moral  outlook,  perhaps  re- 
inspire  our  religion  and  our  philosophy. 

That  conclusion  need  by  no  means  render  us  pessi- 
mistic concerning  the  future  of  sexual  hygiene,  nor  unduly 
anxious  to  cling  to  the  policy  of  the  past.  But  it  may 
induce  us  to  be  content  to  move  slowly,  to  prepare 
our  movements  widely  and  firmly,  and  not  to  expect 
too  much  at  the  outset.  By  introducing  sexual  hygiene 
we  are  breaking  with  the  tradition  of  the  past  which 
professed  to  leave  the  process  by  which  the  race  is  carried 
on  to  Nature,  to  God,  especially  to  the  devil.  We  are 
claiming  that  it  is  a  matter  for  individual  personal 
responsibility,  deliberately  exercised  in  the  light  of 
precise  knowledge  which  every  young  man  and  woman 
has  a  right,  or  rather  a  duty,  to  possess.  That  conception 
of  personal  responsibility  thus  extended  to  the  sphere  of 
sex  in  the  reproduction  of  the  race  may  well  transform 
life  and  alter  the  course  of  civilization.  It  is  not  merely 
a  reform  in  the  class-room,  it  is  a  reform  in  the  home, 
in  the  church,  in  the  law  courts,  in  the  legislature.  If 
sexual  hygiene  means  that,  it  means  something  great, 
though  something  which  can  only  come  slowly,  with 
difficulty,  with  much  searching  of  hearts.  If,  on  the 
other  hand,  sexual  hygiene  means  nothing  but  the  in- 
troduction of  a  new  formal  catechism,  and  an  occasional 
goody-goody  perfunctory  exhortation,  it  may  be  intro- 
duced at  once,  quite  easily,  without  hurting  anyone's 
feelings.  But,  really,  it  will  not  be  worth  worrying  about, 
one  way  or  the  other, 
s 


IX 

IMMORALITY    AND    THE    LAW 

Social  Hygiene  and  Legal  Compulsion — The  Binding  Force  of  Custom 
among  Savages — The  Dissolving  Influence  of  Civilization — The 
Distinction  between  Immorality  and  Criminality — Adultery  as  a 
Crime — The  Tests  of  Criminality — National  Differences  in  laying 
down  the  Boundary  between  Criminal  and  Immoral  Acts — France 
— Germany — England — The  United  States — Police  Administra- 
tion— Police  Methods  in  the  United  States — National  Differences  in 
the  Regulation  of  the  Trade  in  Alcohol — Prohibition  in  the  United 
States — Origin  of  the  American  Method  of  Dealing  with  Immorality 
— Russia — Historical  Fluctuations  in  Methods  of  dealing  with 
Immorality  and  Prostitution — Homosexuality — Holland — The  Age 
of  Consent — Moral  Legislation  in  England— In  the  United  States — 
The  Raines  Law — American  Attempts  to  Suppress  Prostitution — 
Their  Futility — German  Methods  of  Regulating  Prostitution — 
The  Sound  Method  of  Approaching  Immorality — Training  in 
Sexual  Hygiene — Education  in  Personal  and  Social  Responsibility. 

THE  modern  development  of  Social  Hygiene  in 
matters  of  Eugenics  has  already  sufficed  to 
show  that  there  are  certain  people  in  the 
community,  anxious  to  take  quick  cuts  to  the  millennium, 
who  think  that  Eugenics  can  be  promoted  by  hasty 
legislation.  That  method  of  attempting  to  further 
social  progress  is  not  new.  It  has  been  practised  with 
signal  lack  of  success  for  several  thousand  years.  There- 
fore, if  Social  Hygiene  is  really  to  progress  among  us  on 
sane  and  fundamental  lines,  it  is  necessary  for  us  to 
realize  clearly  the  mistakes  of  the  past.    Again  and  again 

258 


IMMORALITY   AND   THE   LAW  259 

the  blind  haste  of  over-zealous  reformers  has  led  not  to 
progress,  but  to  retrogression.  The  excellent  intentions 
of  such  social  reformers  have  been  defeated,  not  so 
much  by  the  evils  they  have  sought  to  overcome,  as 
by  their  own  excesses  of  ignorant  zeal.  As  our  know- 
ledge of  history  and  of  psychology  increases,  we  learn 
that,  in  dealing  with  human  nature,  what  seems  the 
longest  way  round  is  sometimes  the  shortest  way  home. 
Among  savages,  and  no  doubt  in  primitive  societies 
generally,  the  social  reaction  against  injurious  or  even 
unusual  acts  on  the  part  of  individuals  is  regulated  by 
the  binding  force  of  custom.  The  ruling  opinion  is  the 
opinion  of  all,  the  ruling  custom  is  the  duty  for  all 
The  dictates  of  custom,  even  of  ritual  and  etiquette, 
are  stringent  dictates  of  morality  binding  upon  all,  and 
the  breach  of  any  is  equivalent  to  what  we  should  con- 
sider a  crime.  The  savage  man  is  held  in  the  path  of 
duty  by  a  much  more  united  force  of  public  opinion 
than  is  the  civilized  man.  But,  as  Westermarck  points 
out,  in  a  suggestive  chapter  on  customs  and  laws  as 
the  expression  of  moral  ideas,  "  custom  never  covers  the 
whole  field  of  morality,  and  the  uncovered  space  grows 
larger  in  proportion  as  the  moral  consciousness  develops. 
.  .  .  The  rule  of  custom  is  the  rule  of  duty  at  early 
stages  of  development.  Only  progress  in  culture  lessens 
its  sway."1  As  a  community  increases  in  size  and  in 
cultivation,    growing    more    heterogeneous,    it    adheres 

1  Westermarck,  Origin  and  Development  of  the  Moral  Ideas,  Vol.  I, 
p.  160  ;  see  also  chapter  on  sexual  morality  in  Havelock  Ellis,  Studies 
in  the  Psychology  of  Sex,  Vol.  VI,  "  Sex  in  Relation  to  Society,"  chap.  ix. 


260        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

rigidly  to  fundamental  conceptions  of  right  and  wrong, 
but  in  less  fundamental  matters  its  moral  ideas  become 
both  more  subjective  and  more  various.  If  a  man 
kills  another  man  out  of  love  to  that  man's  wife,  all 
civilized  society  is  of  opinion  that  the  homicide  is  a 
"  crime  "  to  be  severely  punished  ;  but  if  the  man  should 
make  love  to  the  wife  without  killing  the  husband,  then, 
although  in  some  savage  societies  the  act  would  still 
have  been  a  "  crime,"  in  a  civilized  society  it  would 
usually  be  regarded  as  more  properly  a  case  for  civil 
action,  not  for  criminal  action ;  while  should  it  come  to  be 
known  that  the  wife  had  from  the  first  been  in  love  with 
the  man,  and  was  married  by  compulsion  to  a  husband 
who  had  brutally  ill-used  her,  then  a  very  considerable 
section  of  the  civilized  community  would  actually  transfer 
their  sympathies  to  the  offending  couple  and  look  upon 
the  husband  as  the  real  offender. 

This  is  why  the  vestigial  relics  of  the  ancient  ecclesi- 
astical view  of  adultery  as  a  "  crime  "  are  no  longer 
supported  by  public  opinion  ;2  they  are  no  longer  en- 
forced, or  else  the  penalty  is  reduced  to  ridiculous  dimen- 
sions (as  in  France,  where  a  fine  of  a  few  francs  may  be 
imposed),  and  there  is  a  general  inclination  to  abolish 
them  altogether.  Penalties  for  adultery  are  not  nowadays 
enacted    afresh,    except    in    the    United    States,    where 

1  It  must  be  remembered  that  in  medieval  days  not  only  adultery 
but  the  smallest  infraction  of  what  the  Church  regarded  as  morality 
could  be  punished  in  the  Archdeacon's  court ;  this  continued  to  be  the 
case  in  England  even  after  the  Reformation.  See  Archdeacon  W.  W. 
Hales'  interesting  work,  Precedents  and  Proceedings  in  Criminal 
Causes  (1847),  which  is,  as  the  author  states,  "  a  History  of  the  Moral 
Police  of  the  Church." 


IMMORALITY  AND    THE    LAW  261 

medieval  regulations  are  enabled  to  survive  through  the 
strength  of  the  Puritan  tradition.  Thus  in  the  State 
of  New  York  a  law  was  passed  in  1907  rendering  any 
person  guilty  of  adultery  punishable  by  six  months' 
imprisonment,  or  a  heavy  fine,  or  both.  The  law  was 
largely  due  to  agitation  by  the  National  Christian  League 
for  the  Promotion  of  Purity  ;  it  was  supposed  the  law 
would  act  to  prevent  adultery.  Less  than  three  months 
after  the  Act  became  law,  lawyers  reached  the  conclusion 
fhat  it  was  a  dead  letter.  During  the  two  years  after 
its  enactment,  notwithstanding  the  large  number  of 
divorces,  only  three  persons  were  sent  to  prison,  for  a 
few  days,  under  this  Act,  and  only  four  fined  a  small  sum. 
The  Committee  of  Fourteen  state  that  it  is  "  of  practically 
no  effect,"  and  add  :  "  The  preventive  values  of  this 
statute  cannot  be  determined,  but,  judging  from  the 
prosecutions,  it  has  proved  an  ineffective  weapon  against 
immorality,  and  has  practically  no  effect  upon  com- 
mercialized vice."1  When  such  laws  remain  on  the 
Statute  Book  as  relics  of  practically  medieval  days  they 
deserve  a  certain  respect,  even  if  it  is  impossible  to  en- 
force them  ;  to  re-enact  them  in  modern  times  is  a 
gratuitous  method  of  bringing  law  into  contempt. 

It  is  clear  that  all  such  cases  affecting  morals  are  not 
only  altered  by  circumstances,  and  by  consideration  of 
the  psychic  state  of  the  individual,  but  that  in  regard  to 
them  different  sections  of  the  community  hold  widely 
different  views.  The  sanctions  of  the  criminal  law  to  be 
firm  and  unshakeable  must  be  capable  of  literal  inter- 

1  The  Social  Evil  in  New  York  City,  p.  ioo. 


262        THE   TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

pretation  and  of  unfailing  execution,  and  in  that  in- 
terpretation and  execution  be  accepted  as  just  by  the 
whole  community.  But  as  soon  as  law  enters  the  sphere 
of  morals  this  becomes  impossible  ;  law  loses  all  its 
certainty  and  all  the  reverence  that  rightly  belongs  to  it. 
It  no  longer  voices  the  conscience  of  the  whole  com- 
munity ;  it  tends  to  be  merely  an  expression  of  the  feelings 
of  a  small  upper-class  social  circle  ;  the  feelings  and  the 
habits  and  the  necessities  of  the  mass  of  the  population 
are  altogether  ignored.1  Nor  are  such  legislative  in- 
cursions into  the  sphere  of  morals  any  more  satisfactory 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  class  which  is  responsible 
for  them.  It  very  soon  begins  to  be  felt  that,  as  Hagen 
puts  it,  "  the  formulas  of  penal  law  are  stiff  and  clumsy 
instruments  which  can  only  in  the  rarest  instance  serve 
to  disentangle  the  delicate  and  manifoldly  interwoven 
threads  of  the  human  soul,  and  decide  what  is  just  and 
what  unjust.  Formulas  are  adopted  for  simple,  un- 
complicated, rough  everyday  cases.  Only  in  such  cases 
do  they  achieve  the  conquest  of  justice  over  injustice." 

It  is  true  that  no  sharp  line  divides  criminal  acts 
from  merely  immoral  acts,  and  the  latter  tend  to 
be  indirectly,  even  when  not  directly,  anti-social.  It 
would  be  highly  convenient  if  we  could  draw  a  sharp 
distinction  between  major  anti-social  acts,  which  may 
properly  be  described  as  "  crime,"  and  justly  be  pursued 

1  This  has  been  emphasized  in  an  able  and  lucid  discussion  of  this 
question  by  Dr.  Hans  Hagen,  "  Sittliche  Werturteile,"  M Utter schutz, 
Heft  I  and  II,  1906.  Such  recognition  of  popular  morals,  he  justly 
remarks,  is  needed  not  only  for  the  sake  of  the  people,  but  for  the  sake 
of  law  itself. 


IMMORALITY   AND   THE   LAW  263 

with  the  full  rigour  of  the  law,  and  minor  anti-social 
acts,  which  may  be  left  to  the  varying  reaction  of  the 
social    environments    since    they    cannot    properly    be 
visited  by  the  criminal  law.1    Such  a  distinction  exists, 
but  it  cannot  be  made  sharply  because  there  are  a  large 
number   of   intermediate   anti-social    acts   which   some 
sections  of  the  community  regard  as  major,  while  others 
regard  them  as  minor,  or  even,  in  some  cases,  as  not  anti- 
social at  all.    The  only  convenient  test  we  can  apply  is 
the  strength  of  the  social   reaction — provided  we   are 
dealing  with  an  act  which  is  definitely  anti-social,  injuring 
recognized  rights,  and  not  merely  an  unusual  or  dis- 
gusting act.2    When  an  anti-social  act  meets  with  a  re- 
action of  social  indignation  which  is  fairly  universal  and 
permanent,  it  may  be  regarded  as  a  crime  coming  under 
the  jurisdiction  of  the  law.     If  opinion  varies,  if  a  con- 
siderable section  of  the  community  revolt  against  the 
punishment  of  the  alleged  anti-social  act,  then  we  are  not 
entitled  to  dignify  it  with  the  appellation  of  "  crime." 
This  is  not  an  altogether  sure  or  satisfactory  criterion 
because  there  are  frequently  times  and  places,  especially 

1  Grabowsky,  in  criticizing  Hiller's  book,  Das  Recht  fiber  sich  Selbst 
(Archiv  fur  Kriminalanthropologie  und  Kriminalistik ,  Bd.  36,  1809), 
argues  that  in  some  cases  immorality  injures  rights  which  need  legal 
protection,  but  he  admits  it  is  difficult  to  decide  when  this  is  the  case. 
He  does  not  think  that  the  law  should  interfere  with  homosexuality 
in  adults,  but  he  does  consider  it  should  interfere  with  incest,  on  the 
ground  that  in-breeding  is  not  good  for  the  race.  But  it  is  the  view  of 
most  authorities  nowadays  that  in-breeding  is  only  injurious  to  the 
race  in  the  case  of  an  unsound  stock,  when  the  defect  being  in  both 
partners  of  the  same  kind  would  probably  be  intensified  by  heredity. 

8  The  occurrence  of,  for  instance,  incestuous,  bestial,  and  homo- 
sexual acts — which  are  generally  abhorrent,  but  not  necessarily  anti- 
social— makes  it  necessary  to  exercise  some  caution  here. 


264        THE   TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

under  the  stimulation  of  some  particular  occurrence 
evoking  an  outburst  of  increased  public  emotion,  when 
a  section  of  the  community  succeeds  by  its  noisy  vigour  in 
creating  the  impression  that  it  voices  the  universal  will. 
But,  on  the  whole,  it  works  out  justly.  Ethical  standards 
differ  in  different  places  at  different  times.  They  are, 
indeed,  always  changing.  Therefore,  in  regard  to  all 
matters  which  belong  to  the  sphere  of  what  we  commonly 
call  morals,  there  are  in  every  community  some  who 
approve  of  a  given  act,  others  who  disapprove  of  it,  yet 
others  who  regard  it  with  indifference.  In  such  a  shifting 
sphere  we  cannot  legislate  with  the  certainty  of  carrying 
the  whole  community  with  us,  nor  can  we  properly 
introduce  the  word  "  crime,"  which  ought  to  indicate 
only  an  action  of  so  gravely  anti-social  nature  that 
there  can  be  no  possibility  of  doubt  about  it. 

It  is,  however,  important  to  understand  the  marked 
national  differences  in  the  reaction  to  these  slightly  or 
dubiously  anti-social  acts,  for  such  differences  rest 
on  ancient  tradition,  and  are  to  some  extent  the  ex- 
pression of  the  genius  of  a  people,  though  they  are  not 
the  absolutely  immutable  product  of  racial  constitution, 
and,  within  limits,  they  undergo  transformation.  It 
thus  happens  that  acts  which  in  some  countries  are 
pursued  by  the  law  and  punished  as  crime,  are  in  other 
countries  untouched  by  the  law,  and  left  to  the  social 
reaction  of  the  community.  It  becomes,  therefore,  of 
some  importance  to  compare  national  differences  in  the 
attitude  towards  immorality,  to  find  out  whether  the 
attempt  to  repress  it  directly,  by  law,  is  more  effective, 


IMMORALITY    AND    THE    LAW  265 

or  less  effective,  than  the  method  of  leaving  it  to  social 
reaction. 

In  many  respects  France  and  Germany  present  a 
remarkable  contrast  in  their  respective  methods  of 
dealing  with  immorality.  The  contrast  has  only  existed 
since  the  sweeping  legal  reforms  which  followed  the 
Revolution  in  France.  In  old  France  the  laws  against 
sexual  and  religious  offences  were  extremely  severe, 
involving  in  some  cases  death  at  the  stake,  and  even 
during  the  eighteenth  century  this  extreme  penalty  of 
the  law  was  sometimes  carried  out.  The  police  were 
active,  their  methods  of  investigation  elaborate  and 
thorough,  yet  the  rigour  of  the  law  and  the  energy  of  the 
police  signally  failed  to  suppress  irreligion  and  immorality 
in  eighteenth-century  France.  The  Revolution,  by 
popularizing  the  opinions  of  the  more  enlightened  men 
of  the  time,  and  by  giving  to  the  popular  voice  an 
authority  it  had  never  possessed  before,  remoulded  the 
antiquated  ecclesiastical  laws  in  accordance  with  the 
ideas  of  the  average  modern  man.  In  1791  nearly  all 
the  ancient  laws  against  immorality,  which  had  proved 
so  ineffectual,  were  flung  away,  and  when  in  1810  Napo- 
leon established  the  great  penal  code  which  bears  his 
name,  he  was  careful  to  limit  to  a  minimum  the  moral 
offences  of  which  the  law  was  empowered  to  take  cog- 
nisances, and  —  acting  certainly  in  accordance  with 
deeply  rooted  instincts  of  the  French  people — he  avoided 
any  useless  or  dangerous  interference  with  private  life 
and  the  freedom  of  the  individual.  The  penal  code  in 
France   remains   substantially   the   same   to-day,   while 


266        THE   TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

the  other  countries  which  have  constructed  their  codes 
on  the  French  model  have  shown  similar  tendencies. 

In  Germany,   and  more  especially  in  Prussia,  which 
now  dominates  German  opinion,  a  very  different  tendency 
prevails.     The  German  feels  nothing  of  that  sensitive 
jealousy  with  which  the  French  seek  to  guard  private 
life  and  the  rights  of  the  individual.     He  tolerates  a 
police   system  which,  as   Fuld  has  pointed  out,  is  the 
most  military  police  system  in  the  world,  and  he  makes 
little   complaint   of   the   indiscriminating   thoroughness, 
even  harshness,   with   which  it   exercises  its  functions. 
"  The   North  German,"   as   a  German   lawyer  puts   it, 
"  gazes  with  sacred  respect  on  every  State  authority, 
and  on  every  official,  especially  on  executive  and  police 
functionaries  ;  he  complacently  accepts  police  inquisition 
into  his  private  life,  and  the  regulation  of  his  behaviour 
by  law  and  police  affects  his  impulse  of  freedom  in  a 
relatively  slight  manner.     Hence  the  law-maker's  inter- 
ference with  his  private  life  seems  to  him  a  customary 
and  not  too  injurious  encroachment  on  his  individuality."1 
It  thus  comes  about  that  a  great  many  acts,  of  for  the 
most    part    unquestioned    immoral    character — such    as 
incest,  the  procuring  of  women  for  immoral  purposes, 
and  acts  of  a  homosexual  character — which,  when  adults 
are  alone  concerned,  the  French  leave  to  be  dealt  with 

1  I  quote  from  a  valuable  and  interesting  study  by  Dr.  Eugen 
Wilhelm,  "  Die  Volkspsychologischen  Unterschiede  in  der  fran- 
zosischen  und  deustchen  Sittlichkeits-Gesetzgebung  und  Recht- 
sprechung,"  Sexual-Probleme,  October,  191 1.  It  may  be  added  that  in 
Switzerland,  also,  the  tyranny  of  the  police  is  carried  to  an  extreme. 
Edith  Sellers  gives  some  extraordinary  examples,  Comhill,  August, 
1910 


IMMORALITY   AND    THE    LAW  267 

by  the  social  reaction,  are  in  Germany  directly  dealt 
with  by  the  law.  These  things  and  the  like  are  viewed 
in  France  with  fully  as  much  detestation  as  in  Germany, 
but  while  the  German  considers  that  that  detestation  is 
itself  a  reason  for  inflicting  a  legal  penalty  on  the  detested 
act,  the  Frenchman  considers  that  to  inflict  a  punish- 
ment upon  such  acts  by  law  is  an  inadmissible  interference 
of  the  State  in  private  affairs,  and  an  unnecessary  inter- 
ference since  the  social  reaction  is  quite  adequate.  In 
Germany,  Dr.  Wilhelm  points  out,  a  man  who  allows 
his  daughter's  fiance  to  stay  overnight  in  his  house 
with  her  is  liable  to  be  dragged  before  the  police  court 
and  sent  to  prison  for  procuring  immorality  j1  to  a 
Frenchman  this  is  a  shocking  and  inconceivable  insult  to 
private  rights.2  So  also  with  the  German  legal  attitude 
towards    sexual    inversion.      The    German    method    of 

1  The  absurdities  and  injustice  of  the  German  law,  and  its  inter- 
ference with  purely  private  interests  in  these  matters,  have  often  been 
pointed  out,  as  by  Dr.  Kurt  Hiller  ("  1st  Kuppelei  Strafwiirdig  ?  " 
Die  Neue  Generation,  November,  1910).  As  to  what  is  possible  under 
German  law  by  judicial  decision  since  1882,  Hagen  takes  the  case  of  a 
widow  who  has  living  with  her  a  daughter,  aged  twenty-five  or  thirty, 
engaged  to  marry  an  artisan  now  living  at  a  distance  for  the  sake  of 
his  work  ;  he  comes  to  see  her  when  he  can  ;  she  is  already  pregnant ; 
they  will  marry  soon  ;  one  evening,  with  the  consent  of  the  widow, 
who  looks  on  the  couple  as  practically  married,  he  stays  over-night, 
sharing  his  betrothed 's  room,  the  only  room  available.  Result : 
the  old  woman  becomes  liable  to  four  years'  penal  servitude,  a  fine 
of  six  thousand  marks,  loss  of  civil  rights,  and  police  supervision. 

2  In  another  respect  the  French  code  carries  private  rights  to  an 
excess  by  forbidding  the  unmarried  mother  to  make  any  claim  on  the 
father  of  her  child.  In  most  countries  such  a  prohibition  is  regarded  as 
unreasonable  and  unjust.  There  is  even  a  tendency  (as  by  a  recent 
Dutch  law)  to  compel  the  father  to  provide  for  his  illegitimate  child  not 
on  the  scale  of  the  mother's  social  position  but  on  the  scale  of  his  own 
social  position.  This  is,  possibly,  an  undue  assertion  of  the  superiority 
of  man. 


268        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

dragging  private  scandals  into  the  glare  of  day  and 
investigating  them  at  interminable  length  in  the  law 
courts  is  a  perpetual  source  of  astonishment  to  Frenchmen. 
They  point  out  that  not  only  does  this  method  defeat  its 
own  end  by  concentrating  attention  on  the  abnormal 
practices  it  attacks,  but  it  adds  dignity  to  them  ;  a 
certain  small  section  of  the  community  justifies  and 
upholds  these  practices,  but  while  in  France  this  section 
has  no  reason  to  come  prominently  before  the  public  since 
it  has  no  grievances  demanding  redress,  in  Germany  the 
existence  of  a  cause  to  advocate  in  the  name  of  justice 
has  produced  a  serious  and  imposing  body  of  literature 
which  has  no  parallel  in  France.1  Thus,  as  Wilhelm  points 
out,  we  find  exactly  opposite  methods  adopted  in  Germany 
and  France  to  obtain  the  same  ends  :  "  In  Germany, 
punishment  on  account  of  alleged  injury  to  general 
interests  ;  in  France  absence  of  punishment  in  order  to 
avoid  injury  to  general  interests ;  in  Germany  the  police 
baton  is  called  for  in  order  to  ward  off  threatened  injury, 
while  in  France  it  is  feared  that  the  use  of  the  police 
baton  will  itself  cause  the  injury." 

The  question  naturally  arises  :  Which  method  is  the 
more  effective  ?     Wilhelm  finds  that  these  differences  in 

1  The  same  point  has  lately  been  illustrated  in  Holland,  where  a 
recent  modification  in  the  law  is  held  to  press  harshly  on  homosexual 
persons.  At  once  a  vigorous  propaganda  on  behalf  of  the  homosexual 
has  sprung  into  existence.  We  see  here  the  difference  between  moral 
enactments  and  criminal  enactments.  Supposing  that  a  change  in 
the  law  had  placed,  for  instance,  increased  difficulties  in  the  way  of 
burglary.  We  should  not  witness  any  outburst  of  literary  activity  on 
behalf  of  burglars,  because  the  community,  as  a  whole,  is  thoroughly 
convinced  that  burglary  ought  to  be  penalized. 


IMMORALITY   AND  THE   LAW  269 

national  attitude  towards  immorality  have  not  by  any 
means  rendered  immorality  more  prevalent  in  France 
than  in  Germany;  on  the  contrary,  though  extra-con- 
jugal intercourse  is  in  Germany  almost  a  crime,  sexual 
offences  against  children  are  far  more  prevalent  than  in 
France,  while  family  life  is  at  least  as  stable  in  France  as 
in  Germany,  and  more  intimate.  M  The  freer  way  of 
regarding  sexual  matters  and  its  results  in  legislation 
have,  as  compared  to  Germany,  in  no  respect  led  to  more 
immoral  conditions,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  it  has 
been  the  reason  why  the  vigorous  agitation  which  we 
find  in  Germany  for  certain  legal  reforms  in  respect  to 
sexuality  are  quite  unknown." 

It  is  forgotten,  in  Germany  and  in  some  other  countries, 
sometimes  even  in  France,  that  to  bring  immorality 
within  reach  of  the  arm  of  the  law  is  not  necessarily  by 
any  means  to  make  the  actual  penalty,  in  the  largest 
sense  of  the  term,  more  severe.  So  long  as  he  retains  the 
good  opinion  of  his  fellows,  imprisonment  is  no  injury  to  a 
man  ;  it  has  happened  to  some  of  our  most  distinguished 
and  respected  public  men.  The  bad  opinion  of  his 
fellows,  even  when  the  law  is  powerless  to  touch  him,  is 
often  an  irretrievable  injury  to  a  man.  We  do  not 
fortify  the  social  reaction,  in  most  matters,  when  we 
attempt  to  give  it  a  legal  sanction  ;  we  do  not  even  need 
to  fortify  it,  for  it  is  sometimes  harsher  and  more  severe 
than  the  law,  overlooking  or  not  knowing  all  the  extenu- 
ating circumstances.  In  France,  as  in  England,  the  force 
of  social  opinion,  independently  of  the  law,  is  exceedingly 
and  perhaps  excessively  strong. 


270        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

In  England,  however,  we  see  an  attitude  towards 
immorality  which  differs  alike  from  the  French  attitude 
and  the  German  attitude,  though  it  has  points  of  contact 
with  both.  The  distinctive  feature  of  the  Englishman's 
attitude  is  his  spirit  of  extreme  individualism  (which 
distinguishes  him  from  the  German)  combined  with  the 
religious  nature  of  his  moral  fervour  (which  distinguishes 
him  from  the  Frenchman),  both  being  veiled  by  a  shy 
prudery  (which  distinguishes  him  alike  from  the  French- 
man and  the  German).  The  Englishman's  reverence  for 
the  individual's  rights  goes  beyond  the  Frenchman's,  for 
in  France  there  is  a  tendency  to  subordinate  the  individual 
to  the  family,  and  in  England  the  interests  of  the  indi- 
vidual predominate.  But  while  in  France  the  laws  have 
been  re-moulded  to  the  national  temperament,  this  has 
not  been  the  case  to  anything  like  the  same  extent  in 
England,  where  in  modern  times  no  great  revolution  has 
occurred  to  shake  off  laws  which  still  by  their  antiquity, 
rather  than  by  their  reasonableness,  retain  the  reverence 
of  the  people.  Thus  it  comes  about  that,  on  the  legal  side, 
the  English  attitude  towards  immorality  in  many  respects 
resembles  the  German  attitude.  Yet  undoubtedly  the 
most  fundamental  element  in  the  English  attitude  is  the 
instinct  for  personal  freedom,  and  even  the  religious 
fervour  of  the  moral  impulse  has  strengthened  the 
individualistic  element.1    We  see  this  clearly  in  the  fact 

1  Apart  from  the  attitude  towards  immorality,  we  have  an  illustra- 
tion of  the  peculiarly  English  tendency  to  unite  religious  fervour  with 
individualism  in  Quakerism.  In  no  other  European  country  has  any 
similar  movement — that  is,  a  popular  movement  of  individualistic 
mysticism — ever  appeared  on  the  same  scale. 


IMMORALITY    AND   THE   LAW  271 

that  England  has  even  gone  beyond  France  in  rejecting 
the  control  of  prostitutes.  The  French  are  striving  to 
abolish  such  control,  but  in  England  where  it  was  never 
extensively  established  it  has  long  been  abolished,  leaving 
only  a  few  faint  traces  behind.  It  is  abhorrent  to  the 
English  mind  that  even  the  most  degraded  specimens  of 
humanity  should  be  compulsorily  deprived  of  rights  over 
their  own  persons,  even  when  it  is  claimed  that  the 
deprivation  of  such  rights  might  be  for  the  benefit  of  the 
community.  In  no  country,  perhaps,  is  the  prostitute  so 
free  to  parade  the  streets  in  the  exercise  of  her  profession 
as  in  England,  and  in  no  country  is  public  opinion  so 
intolerant  of  even  the  suspicion  of  a  mistake  by  the 
police  in  the  exercise  of  that  very  limited  control  over 
prostitutes  which  they  possess.  The  freedom  of  the 
prostitute  in  England  is  further  guaranteed  by  the  very 
fervour  of  English  religious  feeling  ;  for  active  inter- 
ference with  prostitutes  involves  regulation  of  prostitu- 
tion, and  that  implies  a  national  recognition  of  prostitution 
which  to  a  very  large  section  of  the  English  people  would 
be  altogether  repellant.  Thus  English  love  of  freedom 
and  English  love  of  God  combine  to  protect  the  prostitute. 
It  has  to  be  added  that  this  result  is  by  no  means,  as  some 
have  imagined,  hostile  to  morality.  It  is  the  opinion  of 
many  foreign  observers  that  in  this  matter  London,  for 
all  its  freedom,  compares  favourably  with  many  other 
large  cities  where  prostitution  is  severely  regulated  by 
the  police  and  so  far  as  possible  concealed.  For  the 
police  can  never  become  the  agents  of  any  morality  of 
the  heart,  and  all  the  repression  in  the  world  can  only 
touch  the  surface  of  life. 


272        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

The  English  attitude,  again,  is  characteristically  seen 
in  the  method  of  dealing  with  homosexual  practices  and 
other  similar  sexual  aberrations.  Here,  legally,  England 
is  closer  to  Germany  than  to  modern  France.  No  country 
in  the  world,  it  is  often  said,  has  preserved  by  tradition  and 
even  maintained  by  recent  accretion  such  severe  penalties 
against  homosexual  offences  as  England.  Yet,  unlike  the 
Germans,  the  English  do  not  actively  prosecute  in  these 
cases  and  are  usually  content  to  leave  the  law  in  abeyance, 
so  long  as  public  order  and  decency  are  reasonably 
maintained.  English  people,  like  the  French  people, 
are  by  no  means  impressed  by  the  advantages  of  the 
German  system  by  which  purely  private  scandals  are 
made  public  scandals,  to  be  set  forth  day  after  day 
in  all  their  details  before  the  court,  and  discussed 
excitedly  by  the  whole  population.  Yet  the  English  law 
in  this  matter  is  still  very  widely  upheld.  There  are  very 
many  English  people  who  think  that  the  fact  that  homo- 
sexuality is  disgusting  to  most  people  is  a  reason  for 
punishing  it  with  extreme  severity.  Yet  disgust  is  a 
matter  of  taste,  we  cannot  properly  impart  it  into  our 
laws  ;  a  disgusting  person  is  not  necessarily  a  criminal 
person,  or  we  shall  have  to  enact  that  many  inmates  of 
our  hospitals  and  lunatic  asylums  be  hanged.  There  is 
thus  a  fundamental  inconsistency  in  the  English  method  of 
dealing  with  immorality  ;  it  is  made  up  of  opposite  views, 
some  of  them  extreme  in  contrary  directions.  But  by 
virtue  of  the  national  tendency  to  compromise,  these 
conflicting  tendencies  work  in  a  fairly  harmonious  manner. 
The  result  is  that  the  general  state  of  English  morality— 


IMMORALITY   AND    THE    LAW  273 

notwithstanding,  and  perhaps  partly  by  reason  of,  its 
prudish  anxiety  to  leave  unpleasant  matters  alone — is  at 
least  as  satisfactory  as  that  of  countries  where  much  more 
logical  and  thorough  methods  are  in  favour. 

In  the  United  States  we  see  yet  another  attitude 
towards  immorality.  It  is,  indeed,  related  to  the  English 
attitude,  necessarily  so,  since  the  most  ancient  and 
fundamental  element  of  it  was  carried  over  to  America 
by  the  English  Puritans,  who  cherished  in  the  extreme 
form  alike  the  English  passion  for  individualism  and  the 
English  fervour  of  religious  idealism.  These  germs  have 
been  too  potent  for  destruction  even  under  all  the  new 
influences  of  American  life.  But  they  are  not  altogether 
in  harmony  with  those  influences,  and  the  result  has 
been  that  the  American  attitude  towards  immorality  has 
sometimes  looked  rather  like  a  caricature  of  the  English 
method.  The  influx  of  a  vast  and  racially  confused 
population  with  the  over-rapid  development  of  urbaniza- 
tion which  has  necessarily  followed,  opens  an  immense 
field  for  idealistic  individualism  to  attempt  reforms. 
But  this  individualism  has  not  been  held  in  check  by 
the  English  spirit  of  compromise,  which  is  not  a  part  of 
Puritanism,  and  it  has  thus  tended  alike  to  excess  and  to 
impotence.  This  result  is  brought  about  partly  by 
facilities  for  individualistic  legislation  not  voicing  the 
tendencies  of  the  whole  population,  and  therefore  fatally 
condemned  to  sterility,  and  partly  by  the  fact  that  in  a 
new  and  rapidly  developed  civilization  it  is  impossible 
to  secure  an  army  of  functionaries  who  may  be  trusted  to 
deal  with  the  regulation  of  delicate  and  complex  moral 


274        THE   TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

questions  in  regard  to  which  the  community  is  not  really 
agreed.  The  American  police  arc  generally  admitted 
to  be  open  with  special  frequency  to  the  charge  of  ineffec- 
tiveness and  venality.  It  is  not  so  often  realized  that 
these  defects  are  fostered  by  the  impossible  nature  of  the 
tasks  which  are  imposed  on  the  American  police. 

This  aspect  of  the  matter  has  been  very  clearly  set 
forth  by  Dr.  Fuld,  of  Columbia  University,  in  his  able  and 
thorough  book  on  police  administration.1  He  shows 
that,  though  the  American  police  system  as  a  system 
has  defects  which  need  to  be  remedied,  it  is  not  true  that 
the  individual  members  of  the  American  police  forces  are 
inferior  to  those  of  other  countries  ;  on  the  contrary, 
they  are,  in  some  respects,  superior ;  it  is  not  a  large 
proportion  which  sells  the  right  to  break  the  law.2  Their 
most  serious  defects  are  due  to  the  impracticable  laws  and 
regulations  made  by  inexperienced  legislators.  These 
laws  and  ordinances  in  many  cases  cannot  possibly  be 
enforced,  and  the  weak  police  officers  accept  money  from 
the  citizen  for  not  enforcing  rules  which  in  any  case  they 
could  not  enforce.  "  The  American  police  forces,"  says 
Fuld,  "  have  been  corrupted  almost  solely  by  the  statutes. 
.  .  .  The  real  blame  attaches  not  to  the  policeman  who 
accepts  a  bribe  temptingly  offered  him,  nor  to  the  bribe- 
giver who  seeks  by  giving  a  bribe  to  make  the  best 

1  E.  F.  Fuld,  Ph.D.,  Police  Administration,  1909. 

2  Ex-Police  Commissioner  Bingham,  of  New  York,  estimated 
(Hampton's  Magazine,  September,  1909)  that  "  fifteen  per  cent,  or 
from  1500  to  2000  members  of  the  police  force  are  unscrupulous 
'  grafters  '  whose  hands  are  always  out  for  easy  money."  See  also 
Report  of  the  Committee  of  Fourteen  on  The  Social  Evil  in  New 
York  City,  p.  34. 


IMMORALITY    AND    THE    LAW  275 

possible  business  arrangement,  but  rather  to  the  law, 
which  by  giving  the  police  a  large  and  uncontrolled 
discretion  in  the  enforcement  of  the  law  places  a  premium 
upon  bribe-giving  and  bribe-taking."  This  state  of  things 
is  rendered  possible  by  the  fact  that  the  duties  of  the 
police  are  not  confined  to  matters  affecting  crime  and 
public  order — matters  which  the  whole  community 
consider  essential,  and  in  regard  to  which  any  police 
negligence  is  counted  a  serious  charge — but  are  extended 
to  unessential  matters  which  a  considerable  section  of  the 
community,  including  many  of  the  police  themselves, 
view  with  complete  indifference.  It  is  impossible  to 
regard  seriously  a  conspiracy  to  defeat  laws  which  a  large 
proportion  of  citizens  regard  as  unnecessary  or  even 
foolish.  It  thus  unfortunately  comes  about  that  the 
charge  brought  against  the  American  police  that  "  it 
sells  the  right  to  break  the  law  "  has  not  the  same  grave 
significance  which  it  would  have  in  most  countries,  for  the 
rights  purchased  in  America  may  in  most  countries  be 
obtained  without  purchase.  "  An  act  ought  to  be  made 
criminal,"  as  Fuld  rightly  lays  down,  "  only  when  it  is 
socially  expedient  to  punish  its  criminality.  .  .  .  The  Ameri- 
can people,  or  at  least  the  American  legislators,  do  not 
make  this  clear  distinction  between  vice  and  crime.  There 
seems  to  be  a  feeling  in  America  that  unless  a  vice  is  made 
a  crime,  the  State  countenances  the  vice  and  becomes  a 
party  to  its  commission.  There  are  unfortunately  a 
large  number  of  men  in  the  community  who  believe  that 
they  have  satisfied  the  demands  made  upon  them  to  lead 
a  virtuous  life  by  incorporating  into  some  statute  the 


276        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

condemnation  of  a  particular  vicious  act  as  a  crime."  * 
This  special  characteristic  of  American  laws,  with  its 
failure  to  distinguish  between  vice  and  crime,  is  clearly  a 
legacy  of  the  early  Puritans.  The  Puritans  carried  over 
to  New  England  independent  autonomous  laws  of 
morality,  and  were  contemptuous  of  external  law.  The 
sturdy  pioneers  of  the  first  generation  were  faithful  to 
that  attitude,  and  were  not  even  guilty  of  punishing 
witches.  But,  when  the  opportunity  came,  their  descen- 
dants could  not  resist  the  temptation  to  erect  an  external 
law  of  morals,  and,  like  the  Calvinists  of  Geneva,  they 
set  up  an  inquisition  backed  by  the  secular  arm.  It  was 
not  until  the  days  of  Emerson  that  American  Puritanism 
regained  autonomous  freedom  and  moved  in  the  same  air 
as  Milton.  But  in  the  meantime  the  mischief  had  been 
done.  Even  to-day  an  inquisition  of  the  mails  has  been 
established  in  the  United  States.  It  is  said  to  be  un- 
constitutional, and  one  can  well  believe  that  that  is  so, 
but  none  the  less  it  flourishes  under  the  protection  of 
what  a  famous  American  has  called  "  the  never-ending 
audacity  of  elected  persons."  But  to  allow  subordinate 
officials  to  masquerade  in  the  Postal  Department  as 
familiars  of  the  inquisition,  in  the  supposed  interests  of 
public  morals,   is  a  dangerous  policy.2     Its  deadening 

1  Fuld,  op.  cit.,  pp.  373  et  seq.  This  last  opinion  by  no  means  stands 
alone.  Thus  it  is  asserted  by  the  Committee  of  Fourteen  in  their 
Report  on  The  Social  Evil  in  New  York  City  (1910,  p.  xxxiv)  that 
"  some  laws  exist  to-day  because  an  unintelligent,  cowardly  public 
puts  unenforceable  statutes  on  the  book,  being  content  with  registering 
their  hypocrisy." 

2  It  is  also  a  blundering  policy.  Its  blind  anathema  is  as  likely  as 
not  to  fall  on  its  own  allies.    Thus  the  Report  of  the  municipally  ap- 


IMMORALITY    AND    THE    LAW  277 

influence  on  national  life  cannot  fail  sooner  or  later  to  be 
realized  by  Americans.  To  moralize  by  statute  is  idle 
and  unsatisfactory  enough  ;  but  it  is  worse  to  attempt  to 
moralize  by  the  arbitrary  dicta  of  minor  government 
officials. 

It  is  interesting  to  observe  the  methods  which  find 
favour  in  some  parts  of  the  United  States  for  dealing  with 
the  trade  in  alcoholic  liquors.  Alcohol  is,  on  the  one  hand, 
a  poison  ;  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  the  basis  of  the  national 
drinks  of  every  civilized  country.  Every  state  has  felt 
called  upon  to  regulate  its  sale  to  more  or  less  extent,  in 
such  a  way  that  (1)  in  the  interests  of  public  health 
alcohol  may  not  be  too  easily  or  too  cheaply  obtainable, 
that  (2)  the  restraints  on  its  sale  may  be  a  source  of 
revenue  to  the  State,  and  that  (3)  at  the  same  time  this 
regulation  of  the  sale  may  not  be  a  vexatious  and  useless 
attempt  to  interfere  unduly .  with  national  customs. 
States  have  sought  to  attain  these  ends  in  various  ways. 
The  sale  of  alcohol  may  be  made  a  State  monopoly,  as  in 
Russia,  or,  again,  it  may  be  carried  on  under  disinterested 
municipal  or  other  control,  as  by  the  Gothenburg  system 
of  Sweden  or  the  Samlag  system  of  Norway. *  In  England 
the  easier  and  more  usual  plan  is  adopted  of  heavily 

pointed  and  municipally  financed  Vice  Commission  of  Chicago  is 
not  only  an  official  but  a  highly  moral  document,  advocating  increased 
suppression  of  immoral  literature,  and  erring,  if  it  errs,  on  the  side  of 
over-severity.  It  has  been  suppressed  by  the  United  States  Post  Office  ! 
1  This  system  applies  only  to  spirits,  not  to  beer  and  wine,  but 
it  has  proved  very  effective  in  diminishing  drunkenness,  as  is  admitted 
by  those  who  are  opposed  to  the  system.  A  somewhat  similar  system 
exists  in  England  under  the  name  of  the  Trust  system,  but  its  extension 
appears  unfortunately  to  be  much  impeded  by  English  laws  and  customs 


278        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

taxing  the  sale,  with,  in  addition,  various  minor  methods 
for  restraining  the  sale  of  alcoholic  drinks  and  attempting 
to  improve  the  conditions  under  which  they  are  sold. 

In  France  an  ingenious  method  of  influencing  the  sale 
of  alcohol  has  lately  been  adopted,  in  the  interests  of 
public  health,  which  has  proved  completely  successful. 
The  French  national  drink  is  light  wine,  which  may  be 
procured  in  abundance,  of  excellent  and  wholesome 
quality  and  very  cheaply,  provided  it  is  not  heavily  taxed. 
But  of  recent  years  there  has  been  a  tendency  in  France 
to  consume  in  large  quantity  the  heavy  alcoholic  spirits, 
often  of  a  specially  deleterious  kind.  The  plan  has  been 
adopted  of  placing  a  very  high  duty  on  distilled  beverages 
and  reducing  the  duty  on  the  light  wines,  as  well  as  beer, 
so  that  a  wholesome  and  genuine  wine  can  be  supplied  to 
the  consumer  at  as  low  a  price  as  beer.  As  a  result  the 
French  consumer  has  shown  a  preference  for  the  cheap 
and  wholesome  wine  which  is  really  his  national  drink,  and 
there  is  an  enormous  fall  in  the  consumption  of  spirits. 
Whereas  formerly  the  consumption  of  brandy  in  French 
towns  amounted  to  seven  or  eight  litres  of  absolute 
alcohol  per  head,  it  has  now  fallen  in  the  large  towns  to 
4-23  litres.1 

In  America,  however,  there  is  a  tendency  to  deal  with 
the  sale  of  alcohol  totally  opposed  to  that  which  nearly 
everywhere  prevails  in  Europe.  When  in  Europe  a  man 
abandons  the  use  of  alcohol  he  makes  no  demand  on  his 
fellow  men  to  follow  his  example,  or,  if  he  does,  he  is 

1  Jacques  Bertillon,  in  a  paper  read  to  the  Academie  des  Sciences 
Morales  et  Politiques,  30th  September,  191 1. 


IMMORALITY    AND    THE    LAW  279 

usually  content  to  employ  moral  suasion  to  gain  this  end. 
But  in  the  United  States,  where  there  is  no  single  national 
drink,  a  large  number  of  people  have  abandoned  the  use 
of  alcohol,  and  have  persuaded  themselves  that  its  use  by 
other  people  is  a  vice,  for  it  is  not  universally  recognized 
that — "  Selfishness  is  not  living  as  one  wishes  to  live,  it 
is  asking  others  to  live  as  one  wishes  to  live."  Moreover, 
as  in  the  United  States  the  medieval  confusion  between 
vice  and  crime  still  subsists  among  a  section  of  the 
population,  being  a  part  of  the  national  tradition,  it 
became  easy  to  regard  the  drinking  of  alcohol  as  a  crime 
and  to  make  it  punishable.  Hence  we  have  "  Prohibi- 
tion," which  has  prevailed  in  various  States  of  the  Union 
and  is  especially  associated  with  Maine,  where  it  was 
established  in  a  crude  form  so  long  ago  as  1846  and 
(except  for  a  brief  interval  between  1856  and  1858) 
has  prevailed  until  to-day.  The  law  has  never  been 
effective.  It  has  been  made  more  and  more  stringent  ; 
the  wildest  excuses  of  arbitrary  administration  have  been 
committed  ;  scandals  have  constantly  occurred  ;  officials 
of  iron  will  and  determination  have  perished  in  the  faith 
that  if  only  they  put  enough  energy  into  the  task  the  law 
might,  after  all,  be  at  last  enforced.  It  was  all  in  vain. 
It  has  always  been  easy  in  the  cities  of  Maine  for  those  to 
obtain  alcohol  who  wished  to  obtain  it.  Finally,  in  1911, 
by  a  direct  Referendum,  the  majority  by  which  the  people 
of  Maine  are  maintaining  Prohibition  has  been  brought 
down  to  700  in  a  total  poll  of  120,000,  while  all  the  large 
towns  have  voted  for  the  repeal  of  Prohibition  by  enor- 
mous majorities.     The   people   of  Maine  are  evidently 


280        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

becoming  dimly  conscious  that  it  is  worse  than  useless  to 
make  laws  which  no  human  power  can  enforce.  "  The 
result  of  the  vote,"  writes  Mr.  Arthur  Sherwell,  an 
English  social  Reformer,  not  himself  opposed  to  temper- 
ance legislation,  "  from  every  point  of  view,  and  not 
least  from  the  point  of  view  of  temperance,  is  eminently 
unsatisfactory,  and  it  unquestionably  creates  a  position 
of  great  difficulty  and  embarrassment  for  the  authorities. 
A  majority  of  700  in  a  total  poll  of  120,000  is  clearly 
not  a  sufficient  mandate  for  a  drastic  law  which  previous 
experience  has  conclusively  shown  cannot  be  enforced 
successfully  in  the  urban  districts  of  the  State."  Success- 
ful enforcement  of  prohibition  on  a  State  basis  would 
appear  to  be  hopeless.  The  history  of  Prohibition  in 
Maine  will  for  ever  form  an  eloquent  proof  of  the  mis- 
chief which  comes  when  the  ancient  ecclesiastical  failure 
to  distinguish  between  the  sphere  of  morals  and  the 
sphere  of  law  is  perpetuated  under  the  conditions  of 
modern  life.  The  attempt  to  force  men  to  render  unto 
Caesar  the  things  which  are  God's  must  always  end  thus. 
In  these  matters  we  witness  in  America  the  survival  of 
an  ancient  tradition.  The  early  Puritans  were  indi- 
vidualists, it  is  true,  but  their  individualism  took  a 
theocratic  form,  and,  in  the  name  of  God,  they  looked 
upon  crimes  and  vices  equally  and  indistinguishably  as 
sins.  We  see  exactly  the  same  point  of  view  in  the 
Penitentials  of  the  ninth  century,  which  were  ecclesiastical 
codes  dealing,  exactly  in  the  same  spirit  and  in  the  same 
way,  with  crime  and  with  vice,  recognizing  nothing  but  a 
certain  difference  in  degree  between  murder  and  masturba- 


IMMORALITY    AND    THE    LAW  281 

tion.  In  the  ninth  century,  and  even  much  later,  in 
Calvin's  Geneva  and  Cotton  Mather's  New  England,  it  was 
possible  to  carry  into  practice  this  theocratic  conception 
of  the  unity  of  vices  and  crimes  and  the  punishment  as 
sins  of  both  alike,  for  the  community  generally  accepted 
that  point  of  view.  But  that  is  very  far  from  being  the 
case  in  the  United  States  of  to-day.  The  result  is  that  in 
America  in  this  respect  we  find  a  condition  of  things 
analogous  to  that  which  existed  in  France,  before  the 
Revolution  remoulded  the  laws  in  accordance  with  the 
temperament  of  the  nation.  Laws  and  regulations  of  the 
medieval  kind,  for  the  moral  ordering  of  the  smallest 
details  of  life,  are  still  enacted  in  America,  but  they  are 
regarded  with  growing  contempt  by  the  community  and 
even  by  the  administrators  of  the  laws.  It  is  realized 
that  such  minute  inquisition  into  the  citizen's  private  life 
can  only  be  effectively  carried  out  where  the  citizen 
himself  recognizes  the  divine  right  of  the  inquisitor.  But 
the  theocratic  conception  of  life  no  longer  corresponds  to 
American  ideas  or  American  customs  ;  this  minute  moral 
legislation  rests  on  a  basis  which  in  the  course  of  centuries 
has  become  rotten.  Thus  it  has  come  about  that  nowhere 
in  the  world  is  there  so  great  an  anxiety  to  place  the 
moral  regulation  of  social  affairs  in  the  hands  of  the  police  ; 
nowhere  are  the  police  more  incapable  of  carrying  out 
such  regulation. 

When  we  thus  bear  in  mind  the  historical  aspect  of  the 
matter  we  can  understand  how  it  has  come  about  that 
the  individualistic  idealist  in  America  has  been  much  more 
resolute  than  in  England  to  effect  reforms,  much  more 


282        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

determined  that  they  shall  be  very  thorough  and  extreme 
reforms,  and,  especially,  much  more  eager  to  embody  his 
moral  aspirations  in  legal  statutes.  But  his  tasks  are 
bigger  than  in  England,  because  of  the  vast,  unstable, 
heterogeneous  and  crude  population  he  has  to  deal  with, 
and  because,  at  the  same  time,  he  has  no  firmly  established 
centralized  and  reliable  police  instrument  whereby  to 
effect  his  reforms.  The  fiery  American  moral  idealist  is 
determined  to  set  out  for  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  at  once, 
but  every  steed  he  mounts  proves  broken-winded,  and 
speedily  drops  down  by  the  wayside.  Don  Quixote  sets 
the  lance  at  rest  and  digs  his  spurs  into  Rosinante's 
flanks,  but  he  fails  to  realize  that,  in  our  modern  world, 
he  will  never  bear  him  anywhere  near  the  foe. 

If  we  wish  to  see  a  totally  different  national  method  of 
regarding  immorality  we  may  turn  to  Russia.  Here  also 
we  find  idealism  at  work,  but  it  is  not  the  same  kind  of 
idealism,  since,  far  from  desiring  to  express  itself  by  force, 
its  essential  basis  is  an  absolute  disbelief  in  force.  Russia, 
like  France,  has  inherited  from  an  ancient  ecclesiastical 
domination  an  extremely  severe  code  of  regulations 
against  immorality  and  all  sexual  aberrations,  but,  unlike 
France,  it  has  not  cast  them  off  in  order  to  mould  the 
laws  in  accordance  with  national  temperament.  The 
essence  of  the  Russian  attitude  in  these  matters  is  a 
sympathy  with  the  individual  which  is  stronger  than  any 
antipathy  aroused  by  his  immoral  acts  ;  his  act  is  a 
misfortune  rather  than  a  sin  or  a  crime.  We  may  observe 
this  attitude  in  the  kindly  and  helpful  fashion  in  which  the 
Russian  assists  along  the  streets  his  fellow-man  who  has 


IMMORALITY    AND    THE    LAW  283 

drunk  too  much  vodka,  and,  on  a  higher  plane,  we  see  the 
same  spirit  of  forgiving  human  tenderness  in  the  Russian 
novelists,  most  clearly  in  the  greatest  and  most  typically 
national,  in  Dostoieffsky  and  in  Tolstoy.  The  harsh  rigidity 
of  the  old  Russian  laws  had  not  the  slightest  influence, 
either  in  changing  this  national  attitude  or  in  diminishing 
the  prevalence,  at  the  very  least  as  great  as  elsewhere, 
of  sexual  laxity  or  sexual  aberration.  Nowadays,  as 
Russia  attains  national  self-consciousness,  these  laws 
against  immorality  are  being  slowly  remoulded  in  accor- 
dance with  the  national  temperament,  and  in  some 
respects — as  in  its  attitude  towards  homosexuality  and 
the  introduction  in  1907  of  what  is  practically  divorce  by 
mutual  consent — they  allow  a  freedom  and  latitude 
scarcely  equalled  in  any  other  country.1 

Undoubtedly  there  is,  within  certain  limits,  mutual 
action  and  reaction  in  these  matters  among  nations. 
Thus  the  influence  of  France  has  led  to  the  abolition  of 
the  penalty  against  homosexual  practices  in  many 
countries,  notably  Holland,  Spain,  Portugal,  and,  more 
recently,  Italy,  while  even  in  Germany  there  is  a  strong 
and  influential  party,  among  legal  as  well  as  medical 
authorities,  in  favour  of  taking  the  same  step.  On  the 
other  hand,  France  has  in  some  matters  of  detail  departed 
from  her  general  principle  in  these  matters,  and  has,  for 

1  During  the  present  century  a  great  wave  of  immorality  and  sexual 
crime  has  been  passing  over  Russia.  This  is  not  attributable  to  the 
laws,  old  or  new,  but  is  due  in  part  to  the  Russo-Japanese  War,  and 
in  part  to  the  relaxed  tension  consequent  on  the  collapse  of  the  move- 
ment for  political  reform.  (See  an  article  by  Professor  Asnurof,  "  La 
Crise  Sexuelle  en  Russie,"  Archives  d' Anthropologic  Criminelle,  April, 
1911.) 


284        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

instance — without  doubt  in  an  altogether  justifiable 
manner — taken  part  in  the  international  movement 
against  what  is  called  the  white  slave  trade.  This  mutual 
reaction  of  nations  is  well  recognized  by  the  more  alert  and 
progressive  minds  in  every  country,  jealous  of  any  undue 
interference  with  liberty.  When,  for  instance,  a  Bill  is 
introduced  in  the  English  Parliament  for  promoting 
inquisitorial  and  vexatious  interference  with  matters 
that  are  not  within  the  sphere  of  legislation  it  is  eagerly 
discussed  in  Germany  before  even  its  existence  is  known 
to  most  people  in  England,  not  so  much  out  of  interest  in 
English  affairs  as  from  a  sensitive  dread  that  English 
example  may  affect  German  legislation.1 

Not  only,  indeed,  have  we  to  recognize  the  existence  of 
these  clearly  marked  and  profound  differences  in  legisla- 
tive reaction  to  immorality.  We  have  also  to  realize  that 
at  different  periods  there  are  general  movements,  to  some 
extent  overpassing  national  bounds,  of  rise  and  of  fall  in 
this  reaction. 

v  A  sudden  impulse  seizes  on  a  community,  and  spreads 
to  other  communities,  to  attempt  to  suppress  some  form 
of  immorality  by  law.  Such  attempts,  as  we  know,  have 
always  ended  in  failure  or  worse  than  failure,  for  laws 

1  It  was  by  this  indirect  influence  that  I  was  induced  to  write  the 
present  chapter.  The  editor  of  a  prominent  German  review  wrote  to 
me  for  my  opinion  regarding  a  Bill  dealing  with  the  prevention  of 
immorality  which  had  been  introduced  into  the  English  Parliament 
and  had  aroused  much  interest  and  anxiety  in  Germany,  where  it  had 
been  discussed  in  all  its  details.  But  I  had  never  so  much  as  heard  of 
the  Bill,  nor  could  I  find  any  one  else  who  had  heard  of  it,  until  I 
consulted  a  Member  of  Parliament  who  happened  to  have  been  instru- 
mental in  causing  its  rejection. 


IMMORALITY    AND    THE    LAW  285 

against  immorality  are  either  not  carried  out,  or,  if  they 
are  carried  out,  it  is  at  once  realized  that  new  evils  are 
created  worse  than  the  original  evils,  and  the  laws 
speedily  fall  into  abeyance  or  are  repealed.  That  has 
been  repeatedly  seen,  and  is  well  illustrated  by  the  history 
of  prostitution,  a  sexual  manifestation  which  for  two 
thousand  years  all  sorts  of  persons  in  authority  have 
sought  to  suppress  off-hand  by  law  or  by  administrative 
fiat.  |From  the  time  when  Christianity  gained  full 
political  power,  prostitution  has  again  and  again  been 
prohibited,  under  the  severest  penalties,  but  always  in 
vain.  The  mightiest  emperors — Theodosius,  Valentinian, 
Justinian,  Karl  the  Great,  St.  Louis,  Frederick  Bar- 
barossa — all  had  occasion  to  discover  that  might  was  here 
in  vain,  and  worse  than  in  vain,  that  they  could  not  always 
obey  their  own  moral  ordinances,  still  less  coerce  their 
subjects  into  doing  so,  and  that  even  so  far  as,  on  the 
surface,  they  were  successful  they  produced  results  more 
pernicious  than  the  evils  they  sought  to  suppress.  The 
best  known  and  one  of  the  most  vigorous  of  these  attempts 
was  that  of  the  Empress  Maria  Theresa  in  Vienna  \  Htmt 
all  the  cruelty  and  injustice  of  that  energetic  effort,  and 
all  the  stringent,  ridiculous,  and  brutal  regulations  it 
involved — its  prohibition  of  short  dresses,  its  inspection  of 
billiard-rooms,  its  handcuffing  of  waitresses,  its  whippings 
and  its  tortures — proved  useless  and  worse  than  useless, 
and  were  soon  quietly  dropped.  \  No  more  fortunate 
were  more  recent  municipal  attempts  in  England  and 
America   (Portsmouth,   Pittsburgh,   New  York,  etc.)   to 

1  J.  Schrank,  Die  Prostitution  in  Wien,  Bd.  I,  pp.  152-206. 


286        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

suppress  prostitution  off-hand  ;   for  the  most  part  they 
collapsed  even  in  a  few  daysj 

The  history  of  the  legal  attempts  to  suppress  homo- 
sexuality shows  the  same  results.  It  may  even  be  said  to 
show  more,  for  when  the  laws  against  homosexuality  are 
relaxed  or  abolished,  homosexuality  becomes,  not  per- 
haps less  prevalent  (in  so  far  as  it  is  a  congenital  anomaly 
we  cannot  expect  its  prevalence  to  be  influenced  by  law), 
but  certainly  less  conspicuous  and  ostentatious.  In 
France,  under  the  Bourbons,  the  sexual  invert  was  a 
sacrilegious  criminal  who  could  legally  be  burnt  at  the 
stake,  but  homosexuality  flourished  openly  in  the  highest 
circles,  and  some  of  the  kings  were  themselves  notoriously 
inverted.  Since  the  Code  Napoleon  was  introduced  homo- 
sexual acts,  per  se,  have  never  been  an  offence,  yet  instead 
of  flourishing  more  vigorously,  homosexuality  has  so  far 
receded  into  the  background  that  some  observers  regard 
it  as  very  rare  in  France.  In  Germany  and  England,  on 
the  other  hand,  where  the  antiquated  laws  against  this 
perversion  still  prevail,  homosexuality  is  extremely 
prominent,  and  its  right  to  exist  is  vigorously  championed. 
The  law  cannot  suppress  these  impulses  and  passions  ; 
it  can  only  sting  them  into  active  rebellion.1 

But  although  it  has  invariably  been  seen  that  all 
attempts  to  make  men  moral  by  law  are  doomed  to  dis- 
appointment, spasmodic  attempts  to  do  so  are  continually 
being  made  afresh.     No  doubt  those  who  make  these 

1  The  history  of  this  movement  in  Germany  may  be  followed  in  the 
Vierteljahrsberichte  des  Wissenschaftlich-humanitiiren  Komitees,  edited 
by  Dr.  Magnus  Hirschfeld,  a  great  authority  on  the  matter. 


IMMORALITY    AND    THE    LAW  287 

attempts  are  but  a  small  minority,  people  whose  good 
intentions  are  not  accompanied  by  knowledge  either  of 
history  or  of  the  world.  But  though  a  minority  they 
can  often  gain  a  free  field  for  their  activities.  The  reason 
is  plain.  No  public  man  likes  to  take  up  a  position  which 
his  enemies  may  interpret  as  favourable  to  vice  and 
probably  due  to  an  anxiety  to  secure  legal  opportunities 
for  his  own  enjoyment  of  vice.  This  consideration  especi- 
ally applies  to  professional  politicians.  A  Member  of 
Parliament,  who  must  cultivate  an  immaculately  pure 
reputation,  feels  that  he  is  also  bound  to  record  by  his  vote 
how  anxious  he  is  to  suppress  other  people's  immorality. 
Thus  the  philistine  and  the  hypocrite  join  hands 
with  the  simple-minded  idealist.  Very  few  are  left  to 
point  out  that,  however  desirable  it  is  to  prevent  im- 
morality, that  end  can  never  be  attained  by  law. 

During  the  past  ten  years  one  of  these  waves  of 
enthusiasm  for  the  moralization  of  the  public  by  law 
has  been  sweeping  across  Europe  and  America.  Its 
energy  is  scarcely  yet  exhausted,  and  it  may  therefore  be 
worth  while  to  call  attention  to  it.  The  movement  has 
shown  special  activity  in  Germany,  in  Holland,  in  Eng- 
land, in  the  United  States,  and  is  traceable  in  a  minor 
degree  in  many  other  countries.  In  Germany  the  Lex 
Heintze  in  1900  was  an  indication  of  the  appearance  of 
this  movement,  while  various  scandals  have  had  the 
result  of  attracting  an  exaggerated  amount  of  attention 
to  questions  of  immorality  and  of  tightening  the  rigour 
of  the  law,  though  as  Germany  already  holds  moral 
matters  in  a  very  complex  web  of  regulations  it  can  scarcely 


288        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

be  said  that  the  new  movement  has  here  found  any  large 
field  of  activity.     In  Holland  it  is  different.    Holland  is 
one  of  the  traditional  lands  of  freedom  ;   it  was  the  home 
of  independent  intellect,  of  free  religion,  of  autonomous 
morals,  when  every  other  country  in  Europe  was  closed 
to  these  manifestations  of  the  spirit,  and  something  of  the 
same  tradition  has  always  inspired  its  habits  of  thought, 
even  when  they  have  been  largely  Puritanic.     So  that 
there  was  here  a  clear  field  for  the  movement  to  work  in, 
and  it  has  found  expression,  of  a  very  thorough  character 
indeed,  in  the  new  so-called  "  Morals  Law  "  which  was 
passed   in   191 1   after   several   weeks'   discussion.     Un- 
doubtedly this  law  contains  excellent  features  ;   thus  the 
agents  of  the  "  white  slave  trade,"  who  have  hitherto  been 
especially  active  in  Holland,  are  now  threatened  with  five 
years'  imprisonment.    Here  we  are  concerned  with  what 
may  fairly  be  regarded  as  crime  and  rightly  punishable  as 
such.    But  excellent  provisions  like  these  are  lost  to  sight 
in  a  great  number  of  other  paragraphs  which  are  at  best 
useless  and  ridiculous,  and  at  worst  vexatious  and  mis- 
chievous in  their  attempts  to  limit  the  free  play  of  civiliza- 
tion.   Thus  we  find  that  a  year's  imprisonment,  or  a  heavy 
fine,  threatens  any  one  who  exposes  any  object  or  writing 
which  "  offends  decency,"  a  provision  which  enabled  a 
policeman  to  enter  an  art-pottery  shop  in  Amsterdam  and 
remove  a  piece  of  porcelain  on  which  he  detected  an  in- 
sufficiently clothed  human  figure.    Yet  this  paragraph  of 
the  law  had  been  passed  with  scarcely  any  opposition. 
Another  provision  of  this  law  deals  extensively  with  the 
difficult  and  complicated  question  of  the  "  age  of  con- 


IMMORALITY    AND    THE    LAW  289 

sent  "  for  girls,  which  it  raises  to  the  age  of  twenty-one, 
making  intercourse  with  a  girl  under  twenty-one  an 
offence  punishable  by  four  years'  imprisonment.  It  is 
generally  regarded  as  desirable  that  chastity  should  be 
preserved  until  adult  age  is  well  established.  But  as  soon 
as  sexual  maturity  is  attained — which  is  long  before  what 
we  conventionally  regard  as  the  adult  age,  and  earlier  in 
girls  than  in  boys — it  is  impossible  to  dismiss  the  question 
of  personal  responsibility.  A  girl  over  sixteen,  and  still 
more  when  she  is  over  twenty,  is  a  developed  human  being 
on  the  sexual  side  •  she  is  capable  of  seducing  as  well  as  of 
being  seduced  ;  she  is  often  more  mature  than  the  youth 
of  corresponding  age  ;  to  instruct  her  in  sexual  hygiene, 
to  train  her  to  responsibility,  is  the  proper  task  of  morals. 
But  to  treat  her  as  an  irresponsible  child,  and  to  regard 
the  act  of  interfering  with  her  chastity  when  her  consent 
has  been  given,  as  on  a  level  with  an  assault  on  an 
innocent  child  merely  introduces  confusion.  It  must  often 
be  unjust  to  the  male  partner  in  the  act  «  it  is  always 
demoralizing  and  degrading  to  the  girl  whom  it  aims  at 
"  protecting  "  5  above  all,  it  reduces  what  ought  to  be  an 
extremely  serious  crime  to  the  level  of  a  merely  nominal 
offence  when  it  punishes  one  of  two  practically  mature  per- 
sons for  engaging  with  full  knowledge  and  deliberation  in 
an  act  which,  however  undesirable,  is  altogether  accord- 
ing to  Nature.  There  is  here  a  fatal  confusion  between 
a  crime  and  an  action  which  is  at  the  worst  morally  repre- 
hensible and  only  properly  combated  by  moral  methods. 

These  objections  are  not  of  a  purely  abstract  or  theo- 
retical character.    They  are  based  on  the  practical  out- 
u 


2Q0        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

come  of  such  enactments.  Thus  in  the  State  of  New  York 
the  "  age  of  consent  "  was  in  former  days  thirteen  years. 
It  was  advanced  to  fourteen  and  afterwards  to  sixteen. 
This  is  the  extreme  limit  to  which  it  may  prudently  be 
raised,  and  the  New  York  Society  for  the  Prevention  of 
Cruelty  to  Children,  which  had  taken  the  chief  part  in 
obtaining  these  changes  in  the  law,  was  content  to  stop  at 
this  point.  But  without  seeking  the  approval  of  this 
Society,  another  body,  the  White  Cross  and  Social  Purity 
League,  took  the  matter  in  hand,  and  succeeded  in 
passing  an  amendment  to  the  law  which  raised  the  age  of 
consent  to  eighteen.  What  has  been  the  result  ?  The 
Committee  of  Fourteen,  who  are  not  witnesses  hostile  to 
moral  legislation,  state  that  "  since  the  amendment  went 
into  effect  making  the  age  of  consent  eighteen  years  there 
have  been  few  successful  prosecutions.  The  laws  are 
practically  inoperative  so  far  as  the  age  clause  is  con- 
cerned." Juries  naturally  require  clear  evidence  that  a 
rape  has  been  committed  when  the  case  concerns  a  grown- 
up girl  in  the  full  possession  of  her  faculties,  possibly  even 
a  clandestine  prostitute.  Moreover,  as  rape  in  the  first 
degree  involves  the  punishment  of  imprisonment  for 
twenty  years,  there  is  a  disinclination  to  convict  a  man 
unless  the  case  is  a  very  bad  one.  One  judge,  indeed,  has 
asserted  that  he  will  not  give  any  man  the  full  penalty 
under  the  present  law,  so  long  as  he  is  on  the  bench.  The 
natural  result  of  stretching  the  law  to  undue  limits  is  to 
weaken  it.  Instead  of  being,  as  it  should  be,  an  extremely 
serious  crime,  rape  loses  in  a  large  proportion  of  cases  the 
opprobrium  which  rightly  belongs  to  it.    It  is,  therefore, 


IMMORALITY    AND    THE    LAW  291 

a  matter  for  regret  that  in  some  English  dominions  there 
is  a  tendency  to  raise  the  "  age  of  consent  "  to  an  unduly 
high  limit.  In  New  South  Wales  the  Girls'  Protection  Act 
has  placed  the  age  of  consent  at  sixteen,  and  in  the  case 
of  offences  by  guardians,  schoolmasters,  or  employers  at 
seventeen  years,  notwithstanding  the  vigorous  opposition 
of  a  distinguished  medical  member  of  the  Legislative 
Council  (the  Hon.  J.  M.  Creed),  who  presented  the  argu- 
ments against  so  high  an  age.  Not  a  single  prosecution 
has  so  far  occurred  under  this  Act. 

In  England  the  force  of  the  moral  legislation  wave  has 
been  felt,  but  it  has  been  largely  broken  against  the  con- 
servative traditions  of  the  country,  which  make  all  legisla- 
tion, good  or  bad,  very  difficult.  A  lengthy,  elaborate 
and  high-strung  Prevention  of  Immorality  Bill  was 
introduced  in  the  House  of  Commons  by  a  group  of 
Nonconformists  mainly  on  the  Liberal  side.  This  Bill 
was  very  largely  on  the  lines  of  the  Dutch  law  already 
mentioned  ;  it  proposed  to  raise  the  age  of  consent  to 
nineteen  ;  making  intercourse  with  a  girl  under  that  age 
felony,  punishable  by  five  years'  penal  servitude,  and 
any  attempt  at  such  intercourse  by  two  years'  imprison- 
ment. Such  a  measure  would  be,  it  may  be  noted, 
peculiarly  illogical  and  inconsistent  in  England  and  Scot- 
land, in  both  of  which  countries  (though  their  laws  in 
these  matters  are  independent)  even  a  girl  of  twelve  is 
legally  regarded  as  sufficiently  mature  and  responsible  to 
take  to  herself  a  husband.  At  one  moment  the  Bill  seemed 
to  have  a  chance  of  becoming  law,  but  a  group  of  en- 
lightened and  independent  Liberals,  realizing  that  such 


292        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

a  measure  would  introduce  intolerable  social  conditions, 
organized  resistance  and  prevented  the  acceptance  of  the 
Bill. 

The  chief  organization  in  England  at  the  present  time 
for  the  promotion  of  public  morality  is  the  National 
Council  of  Public  Morals,  which  is  a  very  influential  body, 
with  many  able  and  distinguished  supporters.  Law- 
enforced  morality,  however,  constitutes  but  a  very  small 
part  of  the  reforms  advocated  by  this  organization,  which 
is  far  more  concerned  with  the  home,  the  school,  the 
Church,  and  the  influences  which  operate  in  those  spheres. 
It  has  lately  to  a  considerable  extent  joined  hands  with 
the  workers  in  the  eugenic  movement,  advocating  sexual 
hygiene  and  racial  betterment,  thus  allying  itself  with 
one  of  the  most  hopeful  movements  of  our  day.  Certainly 
there  may  be  some  amount  of  zeal  not  according  to  know- 
ledge in  the  activities  of  the  National  Council  of  Public 
Morals,  but  there  is  also  very  much  that  is  genuinely 
enlightened,  and  the  very  fact  that  the  Council  includes 
representatives  from  so  many  fields  of  action  and  so  many 
schools  of  thought  largely  saves  it  from  running  into 
practical  excesses.  Its  influence  on  the  whole  is  bene- 
ficial, because,  although  it  may  not  be  altogether  averse 
to  moral  legislation,  it  recognizes  that  the  policeman  is  a 
very  feeble  guide  in  these  matters,  and  that  the  funda- 
mental and  essential  way  of  bettering  the  public  morality 
is  by  enlightening  the  private  conscience. 

In  the  United  States  conditions  have  been  very  favour- 
able, as  we  have  seen,  for  the  attempt  to  achieve  social 
reform  by  moral  legislation,   and  nowhere  else  in  the 


IMMORALITY    AND    THE    LAW  293 

world  has  it  been  so  clearly  demonstrated  that  such 
attempts  not  only  fail  to  cure  the  evils  they  are  aimed  at, 
but  tend  to  further  evils  far  worse  than  those  aimed  at. 
A  famous  example  is  furnished  by  the  so-called  "  Raines 
Law  "  of  New  York.  This  Act  was  passed  in  1896,  and 
was  intended  to  regulate  the  sale  of  alcoholic  liquor  in  all 
its  phases  throughout  the  State.  The  grounds  for  bringing 
it  forward  were  that  the  number  of  drinking  saloons  was 
excessive,  that  there  was  no  fixed  licensing  fee,  that  too 
much  discretionary  power  was  allowed  to  the  local  com- 
missioner ;  while,  above  all,  the  would-be  Puritanic  legis- 
lators wished  so  far  as  possible  to  suppress  the  drinking 
of  alcoholic  liquors  on  Sunday.  To  achieve  these  objects 
the  licensing  fee  was  raised  to  four  times  its  usual  amount 
previously  to  this  enactment  ;  heavy  penalties,  including 
the  forfeiture  of  a  large  surety-bond,  were  established, 
and  more  surely  to  prevent  Sunday  drinking  only  hotels, 
not  ordinary  drinking  bars,  were  allowed,  with  many 
stringent  restrictions,  to  sell  drink  on  that  day.  In  order 
that  there  should  be  no  mistake,  it  was  set  forth  in  the 
Act  that  the  hotel  must  be  a  real  hotel  with  at  least  ten 
properly  furnished  bedrooms.  The  legislators  clearly 
thought  that  they  had  done  a  fine  piece  of  work.  "  Sel- 
dom," wrote  the  Committee  of  Fourteen,  who  are  by  no 
means  out  of  sympathy  with  the  aims  of  this  legislation, 
"  has  a  law  intended  to  regulate  one  evil  resulted  in  so 
aggravated  a  phase  of  another  evil  directly  traceable  to 
its  provisions."1 

1  Report  on  The  Social  Evil  in  New  York  City,  p.  38  ;  see  also  Rev. 
Dr.  J.  P.  Peters,  "  Suppression  of  the  '  Raines  Law  Hotels,'  "  American 
Academy  of  Political  and  Social  Science,  November,  1908. 


294        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

In  the  first  place,  the  passing  of  this  law  alarmed  the 
saloon  keepers  ;  they  realized  that  it  had  them  in  a  very 
tight  grip,  and  they  suspected  that  it  might  be  strictly 
enforced.  They  came  to  the  conclusion,  therefore,  that 
their  best  policy  would  be  to  accept  the  law  and  to  con- 
form themselves  to  its  provisions  by  converting  their 
drinking  bars  into  real  hotels,  with  ten  properly  furnished 
bedrooms,  kitchen,  and  dining-room.  The  immediate 
result  was  the  preparation  of  ten  thousand  bedrooms,  for 
which  there  was  of  course  no  real  demand,  and  by  1905 
there  were  1407  certificated  hotels  in  Manhattan  and  the 
Bronx  alone,  about  11 50  of  these  hotels  having  probably 
been  created  by  the  Raines  Law. 

But  something  had  to  be  done  with  all  these  bedrooms, 
properly  furnished  according  to  law,  for  it  was  necessary 
to  meet  the  heavy  expenses  incurred  under  the  new 
conditions  created  by  the  law.  The  remedy  was  fairly 
obvious.  These  bedrooms  were  excellently  adapted  to 
serve  as  places  of  assignation  and  houses  of  prostitution. 
Many  hotel  proprietors  became  practically  brothel 
keepers,  the  women  in  some  cases  becoming  boarders  in 
the  hotels  ;  and  saloons  and  hotels  have  entered  into  a 
kind  of  alliance  for  their  mutual  benefit,  and  are  some- 
times indeed  under  the  same  management.  When  a  hotel 
is  thus  run  in  the  interests  of  prostitution  it  has  what  may 
be  regarded  as  a  staff  of  women  in  the  neighbouring 
streets.  In  some  districts  of  New  York  it  is  found  that 
practically  all  the  prostitutes  on  the  street  are  connected 
with  some  Raines  Law  hotel.  These  wise  moral  legislators 
of  New  York  thought  they  were  placing  a  penalty  on 


IMMORALITY    AND    THE    LAW  295 

Sunday  drinking  ;   what  they  have  really  done  is  to  place 
a  premium  on  prostitution.1 

An  attempt  of  a  different  kind  to  strike  a  blow  at  once 
at  alcohol  and  at  prostitution  has  been  made  in  Chicago, 
with  equally  unsatisfactory  results.  Drink  and  prostitu- 
tion are  connected,  so  intimately  connected,  indeed,  that 
no  attempt  to  separate  them  can  ever  be  more  than 
superficially  successful  even  with  the  most  minute  inqui- 
sition by  the  police,  least  of  all  by  police  officers,  who,  in 
Chicago,  we  are  officially  told,  are  themselves  sometimes 
found,  when  in  uniform  and  on  duty,  drinking  among 
prostitutes  in  "  saloons."  On  May  1,  1910,  the  Chicago 
General  Superintendent  of  Police  made  a  rule  prohibiting 
the  sale  of  liquor  in  houses  of  prostitution.  On  the  surface 
this  rule  has  in  most  cases  been  observed  (though  only  on 
the  surface,  as  the  field-workers  of  the  Chicago  Vice 
Commission  easily  discovered),  and  a  blow  was  thus 
dealt  to  those  houses  which  derive  a  large  profit  from  the 
sale  of  drinks  on  account  of  the  high  price  at  which  they 
retail  them.  Yet  even  so  far  as  the  rule  has  been  obeyed, 
and  not  evaded,  has  it  effected  any  good  ?  On  this  point 
we  may  trust  the  evidence  of  the  Vice  Commissioners  of 
Chicago,  a  municipal  body  appointed  by  the  Mayor  and 

1  It  is  probably  needless  to  add  that  the  specific  object  of  the  Act — 
the  Puritanic  observance  of  Sunday — was  by  no  means  attained.  On 
Sunday,  the  8th  December,  1907,  the  police  made  a  desperate  attempt 
to  enforce  the  law  ;  every  place  of  amusement  was  shut  up  ;  lectures, 
religious  concerts,  even  the  social  meetings  of  the  Young  Men's  Christian 
Association,  were  rigorously  put  a  stop  to.  There  was,  of  course,  great 
popular  indignation  and  uproar,  and  the  impromptu  performances  got 
up  in  the  streets,  while  the  police  looked  on  sympathetically,  are  said 
to  have  been  far  more  outrageous  than  any  entertainment  indoors 
could  possibly  have  been. 


296        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

City  Council,  and  not  anxious  to  discredit  the  actions  of 
their  Police  Superintendent.  "  As  to  the  benefits  derived 
from  this  order,  either  to  the  inmates  or  the  public, 
opinions  differ,"  they  write.  "  It  is  undoubtedly  true 
that  the  result  of  the  order  has  been  to  scatter  the  prosti- 
tutes over  a  wide  territory  and  to  transfer  the  sale  of 
liquor  carried  on  heretofore  in  houses  to  the  near-by 
saloon-keepers,  and  to  flats  and  residential  sections,  but 
it  is  an  open  question  whether  it  has  resulted  in  the 
lessening  of  either  of  the  two  evils  of  prostitution  and 
drink."1  That  is  a  mild  statement  of  the  results.  It  may 
be  noted  that  there  are  over  seven  thousand  drinking 
saloons  in  Chicago,  so  that  the  transfer  is  not  difficult, 
while  the  migration  to  flats — of  which  an  enormous 
number  have  been  taken  for  purposes  of  prostitution 
(five  hundred  in  one  district  alone)  since  this  rule  came 
into  force — may  indeed  enable  the  prostitute  to  live  a 
freer  and  more  humanizing  life,  but  in  no  faintest  degree 
diminishes  the  prevalence  of  prostitution.  From  the 
narrow  police  standpoint,  indeed,  the  change  is  a  dis- 
advantage, for  it  shelters  the  prostitute  from  observation, 
and  involves  an  entirely  new  readjustment  to  new  condi- 
tions. 

It  cannot  be  said  that  either  the  State  of  New  York  or 
the  city  of  Chicago  has  been  in  any  degree  more  fortunate 
in  its  attempts  at  moral  legislation  against  prostitution 
than  against  drinking.  As  we  should  expect,  the  laws  of 
New  York  regard  prostitution  and  the  prostitute  with  an 
eye  of  extreme  severity.    Every  prostitute  in  New  York, 

1  The  Social  Evil  in  Chicago,  p.  112. 


IMMORALITY    AND    THE    LAW  297 

by  virtue  of  the  mere  fact  that  she  is  a  prostitute,  is 
technically  termed  a  "  vagrant."  As  such  she  is  liable 
to  be  committed  to  the  workhouse  for  a  term  not  exceed- 
ing six  months  ;  the  owner  of  houses  where  she  lives 
may  be  heavily  fined,  as  she  herself  may  be  for  living  in 
them,  and  the  keeper  of  a  disorderly  house  may  be 
imprisoned  and  the  disorderly  house  suppressed.  It  is 
not  clear  that  the  large  number  of  prostitutes  in  New 
York  have  been  diminished  by  so  much  as  a  single  unit, 
but  from  time  to  time  attempts  are  made  in  some  district 
or  another  by  an  unusually  energetic  official  to  put  the 
laws  into  execution,  and  it  is  then  possible  to  study  the 
results.  When  disorderly  houses  are  suppressed  on  a 
large  scale,  there  are  naturally  a  great  number  of  prosti- 
tutes who  have  to  find  homes  elsewhere  in  order  to  carry 
on  their  business.  On  one  occasion,  under  the  auspices 
of  District-Attorney  Jerome,  it  is  stated  by  the  Committee 
of  Fourteen  that  eight  hundred  women  were  reported  to  be 
turned  out  into  the  street  in  a  single  night.  For  many 
there  are  the  Raines  Law  hotels.  A  great  many  others 
take  refuge  in  tenement  houses.  Such  houses  in  congested 
districts  are  crowded  with  families,  and  with  these  the 
prostitute  is  necessarily  brought  into  close  contact. 
Consequently  the  seeds  of  physical  and  mental  disorder 
which  she  may  bear  about  her  are  disseminated  in  a  much 
more  fruitful  soil  than  they  were  before.  Moreover,  she 
is  compelled  by  the  laws  to  exert  very  great  energy  in  the 
pursuit  of  her  profession.  As  it  is  an  offence  to  harbour 
her  she  has  to  pay  twice  as  high  a  rent  as  other  people 
would  have  to  pay  for  the  same  rooms.    She  may  have 


298        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

to  pay  the  police  to  refrain  from  molesting  her,  as  well  as 
others  to  protect  her  from  molestation.  She  is  surrounded 
by  people  whom  the  law  encourages  to  prey  upon  her. 
She  is  compelled  to  exert  her  energies  at  highest  tension 
to  earn  the  very  large  sums  which  are  necessary,  not  to 
gain  profits  for  herself,  but  to  feed  all  the  sharks  who  are 
eager  to  grab  what  is  given  to  her.  The  blind  or  perverse 
zeal  of  the  moral  legislators  not  only  intensifies  the  evils 
it  aims  at  curing,  but  it  introduces  a  whole  crop  of  new 
evils. 

How  large  these  sums  are  we  may  estimate  by  the 
investigation  made  by  the  Vice  Commissioners  of  Chicago. 
They   conclude   after   careful   inquiry   that    the    annual 
profits  of  prostitution  in  the  city  of  Chicago  alone  amount 
to  between  fifteen  to  sixteen  million  dollars,  and  they 
regard  this  as  "  an  ultra-conservative  estimate."     It  is 
true  that  not  all  this  actually  passes  through  the  women's 
hands  and  it  includes  the  sales  of  drinks.    If  we  confine 
ourselves  strictly  to  the  earnings  of  the  girls  themselves 
it  is  found  to  work  out  at  an  average  for  each  girl  of 
thirteen  hundred  dollars  per  annum.    This  is  more  than 
four  times  as  much  as  the  ordinary  shop-girl  can  earn  in 
Chicago  by  her  brains,  virtue,  and  other  good  qualities. 
But  it  is  not  too  much  for  the  prostitute's  needs  ;  she  is 
compelled  to  earn  so  large  an  income  because  the  active 
hostility  of  society,  the  law,  and  the  police  facilitates  the 
task   of   all   those   persons— and   they   are   many— who 
desire  to  prey  upon  her.     Thus  society,  the  law,  and  the 
police  gain  nothing  for  morals  by  their  hostility  to  the 
prostitute.     On  the  contrary,   they  give  strength  and 


IMMORALITY    AND    THE    LAW  299 

stability  to  the  very  vice  they  nominally  profess  to  fight 
against.  This  is  shown  in  the  vital  matter  of  the  high 
rents  which  it  is  possible  to  obtain  where  prostitution  is 
concerned.  These  high  rents  are  the  direct  result  of  legal 
and  police  enactments  against  the  prostitute.  Remove 
these  enactments  and  the  rents  would  automatically  fall. 
The  enactments  maintain  the  high  rents  and  so  ensure 
that  the  mighty  protection  of  capital  is  on  the  side  of 
prostitution  ;  the  property  brings  in  an  exorbitant  rate 
of  interest  on  the  capital  invested,  and  all  the  forces  of 
sound  business  are  concerned  in  maintaining  rents.  So 
gross  is  the  ignorance  of  the  would-be  moral  legislators — 
or,  some  may  think,  so  skilful  their  duplicity — that  the 
methods  by  which  they  profess  to  fight  against  immorality 
are  the  surest  methods  for  enabling  immorality  not 
merely  to  exist — which  it  would  in  any  case — but  to 
flourish.  A  vigorous  campaign  is  initiated  against  im- 
morality. On  the  surface  it  is  successful.  Morality 
triumphs.  But,  it  may  be,  in  the  end  we  are  reminded 
of  the  saying  of  M.  Desmaisons  in  one  of  Remy  de 
Gourmont's  witty  and  profound  Dialogues  des  Amateurs  : 
"  Quand  la  morale  triomphe  il  se  passe  des  choses  tres 
vilaines." 

The  reason  why  the  "  triumphs  "  of  legislative  and 
administrative  morality  are  really  such  ignominious 
failures  must  now  be  clear,  but  may  again  be  repeated. 
It  is  because  on  matters  of  morals  there  is  no  unanimity 
of  opinion  as  there  is  in  regard  to  crime.  There  is  always 
a  large  section  of  the  community  which  feels  tolerant 
towards,  and  even  practises,  acts  which  another  section, 


3oo        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

it  may  be  quite  reasonably,  stigmatizes  as  "  immoral." 
Such  conditions  are  highly  favourable  for  the  exercise 
of  moral  influence  ;  they  are  quite  unsuitable  for  legisla- 
tive action,  which  cannot  possibly  be  brought  to  bear 
against  a  large  minority,  perhaps  even  majority,  of  other- 
wise law-abiding  citizens.  In  the  matter  of  prostitution, 
for  instance,  Jthe  Vice  Commissioners  of  Chicago  state  «t 
emphatically  the  need  for  "  constant  and  persistent 
repression "  leading  on  to  "  absolute  annihilation  of 
prostitution."  They  recommend  the  appointment  of  a 
"  Morals  Commission  "  to  suppress  disorderly  houses,  and 
to  prosecute  their  keepers,  their  inmates,  and  their 
patrons  }  they  further  recommend  the  establishment  of  a 
"  Morals  Court  "  of  vaguely  large  scope.  }  Among  the 
other  recommendations  of  the  Commissioners — and  there 
are  ninety-seven  such  recommendations — we  find  the 
establishment  of  a  municipal  farm,  to  which  prostitutes 
can  be  "  committed  on  an  indeterminate  sentence  " ;  a 
"  special  morals  police  squad  "  ;  instructions  to  the 
police  to  send  home  all  unattended  boys  and  girls  under 
sixteen  at  9  p.m.  ;  no  seats  in  the  parks  to  be  in  shade  ; 
searchlights  to  be  set  up  at  night  to  enable  the  police  to 
see  what  the  public  are  doing,  and  so  on.  The  scheme, 
it  will  be  seen,  combines  the  methods  of  Calvin  in  Geneva 
with  those  of  Maria  Theresa  in  Vienna.1 

1  The  methods  of  Maria  Theresa  never  had  any  success  ;  the  methods 
of  Calvin  at  Geneva  had,  however,  a  certain  superficial  success,  because 
the  right  conditions  existed  for  their  exercise.  That  is  to  say,  that  a 
theocratic  basis  of  society  was  generally  accepted,  and  that  the  sup- 
pression of  immorality  was  regarded  by  the  great  mass  of  the  popu- 
lation, including  in  most  cases,  no  doubt,  even  the  offenders  themselves, 
as  a  religious  duty.     It  is,  however,  interesting  to  note  that,  even  at 


IMMORALITY    AND    THE    LAW  301 

*  The  reason  why  any  such  high-handed  repression  of 
immorality  by  force  is  as  impracticable  in  Chicago  as 
elsewhere  is  revealed  in  the  excellent  picture  of  the 
conditions  furnished  by  the  Vice  Commissioners  them- 
selves. They  estimate  that  the  prostitutes  in  disorderly 
houses  known  to  the  police — leaving  out  of  account  all 
prostitutes  in  flats,  rooms^  hotels  and  houses  of  assigna- 
tion, ^and  also  taking  no  note  of  clandestine  prostitutes — 
receive  15,180  visits  from  men  daily,  or  5,540,700  per 
annum.  They  consider  further  that  the  men  in  question^,  P*4rw*vS 
may  be  one-fourth  of  the  adult  male  population  (800,000  -  i»,-,  I  l<a»v 
in  the  city  itself,  leaving  the  surrounding  district  out  of 
the  reckoning),  and  they  rightly  insist  that  this  estimate 
cannot  possibly  cover  all  the  facts.  Yet  it  never  occurs 
to  the  Vice  Commissioners  that  in  thus  proposing  to  brand 
one-third  or  even  only  one  quarter  of  the  adult  male 
population  as  criminals,  and  as  such  to  prosecute  them 
actively,  is  to  propose  an  absurd  impossibility,  j 

It  is  not  by  any  means  only  in  the  United  States  that 
an  object  lesson  in  the  foolishness  of  attempting  to  make 
people  moral  by  force  is  set  up  before  the  world.  It  has 
often  been  set  up  before,  and  at  the  present  day  it  is 
illustrated  in  exactly  the  same  way  in  Germany.  Unlike 
as  are  the  police  systems  and  the  national  temperaments 
of  Germany  and  the  United  States,  in  this  matter  social 
reformers  tell  exactly  the  same  story.    They  report  that 

Geneva,  these  "  triumphs  of  morality  "  have  met  the  usual  fate.  At 
the  present  day,  it  appears  (Edith  Sellers,  Cornhill,  August,  1910),  there 
are  more  disorderly  houses  in  Geneva,  in  proportion  to  the  population, 
than  in  any  other  town  in  Europe. 


302        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

the  German  laws  and  ordinances  against  immorality 
increase  and  support  the  very  evil  they  profess  to  attack. 
Thus  by  making  it  criminal  to  shelter,  even  though  not 
for  purposes  of  gain,  unmarried  lovers,  even  when  they 
intend  to  marry,  the  respectable  girl  is  forced  into  the 
position  of  the  prostitute,  and  as  such  she  becomes  subject 
to  an  endless  amount  of  police  regulation  and  police 
control.  Landlords  are  encouraged  to  live  on  her  activi- 
ties, charging  very  high  rates  to  indemnify  themselves  for 
the  risks  they  run  by  harbouring  her.  She,  in  her  turn, 
to  meet  the  exorbitant  demands  which  the  law  and  the 
police  encourage  the  whole  environment  to  make  upon 
her,  is  forced  to  exercise  her  profession  with  the  greatest 
activity,  and  to  acquire  the  maximum  of  profit.  Law  and 
the  police  have  forged  the  same  vicious  circle.1 

The  illustrations  thus  furnished  by  Germany,  Holland, 
England,  and  the  United  States,  will  probably  suffice  to 
show  that  there  really  is  at  the  present  time  a  wave  of 
feeling  in  favour  of  the  notion  that  it  is  possible  to  promote 
public  morals  by  force  of  law.  It  only  remains  to  observe 
that  the  recognition  of  the  futility  of  such  attempts  by  no 
means  necessarily  involves  a  pessimistic  conservatism. 
To  point  out  that  prostitution  never  has  been,  and  never 
can  be,  abolished  by  law,  is  by  no  means  to  affirm  that  it 
is  an  evil  which  must  endure  for  ever  and  that  no  influence 
can  affect  it.  But  we  have  to  realize,  in  the  first  place, 
that  prostitution  belongs  to  that  sphere  of  human  im- 
pulses in  which  mere  external  police  ordinances  count  for 

1  See  e.g.  P.  Hausmeister,  "  Zur  Analyse  der  Prostitution,"  Gesch- 
lecht  und  Gesellschaft,  1907,  p.  294. 


IMMORALITY    AND    THE    LAW  303 

comparatively  little,  and  that,  in  the  second  place,  even 
in  the  more  potent  field  of  true  morals,  which  has  nothing 
to  do  with  moral  legislation,  prostitution  is  so  subtly  and 
deeply  rooted  that  it  can  only  be  affected  by  influences 
which  bear  on  all  our  methods  of  thought  and  feeling 
and  all  our  social  customJ  It  is  far  from  being  an  isolated 
manifestation;  it  is,  for  instance,  closely  related  to 
marriage  }  any  reforms  in  prostitution,  therefore,  can 
only  follow  a  reform  in  our  marriage  system.  But  prosti- 
tution is  also  related  to  economics,  and  when  it  is  realized 
how  much  has  to  be  altogether  changed  in  our  whole 
social  system  to  secure  even  an  approximate  abolition  of 
prostitution  it  becomes  doubtful  whether  many  people 
are  willing  to  pay  the  price  of  removing  the  "  social 
evil  "  they  find  it  so  easy  to  deplore.  They  are  prepared 
to  appoint  Commissions  j  they  have  no  objection  to 
offer  up  a  prayer  ;  they  are  willing  to  pass  laws  and  issue 
police  regulations  which  are  known  to  be  useless.  At 
that  point  their  ardour  ends. 

If  it  is  impossible  to  guard  the  community  by  statute 
against  the  central  evil  of  prostitution,  still  more  hopeless 
is  it  to  attempt  the  legal  suppression  of  all  the  multitu- 
dinous minor  provocations  of  the  sexual  impulse  offered 
by  civilization.  Let  it  be  assumed  that  only  by  such 
suppression,  and  not  by  frankly  meeting  and  fighting 
temptations,  can  character  be  formed,  yet  it  would  be 
absolutely  impossible  to  suppress  more  than  a  fraction 
of  the  things  that  would  need  to  be  suppressed.  "  There 
is  almost  no  feature,  article  of  dress,  attitude,  act,"  Dr. 
Stanley  Hall  has  truly  remarked,  "  or  even  animal    or 


304        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

perhaps  object  in  nature,  that  may  not  have  to  some 
morbid  soul  specialized  erogenic  and  erethic  power." 
If,  therefore,  we  wish  to  suppress  the  sexually  suggestive 
and  the  possibly  obscene  we  are  bound  to  suppress  the 
whole  world,  beginning  with  the  human  race,  for  if  we 
once  enter  on  that  path  there  is  no  definite  point  at  which 
we  can  logically  stop.  The  truth  is,  as  Mr.  Theodore 
Schroeder  has  so  repeatedly  insisted,1  that  "  obscenity  ' 
is  subjective  ;  it  cannot  reside  in  an  object,  but  only  in 
the  impure  mind  which  is  influenced  by  the  object.  In 
this  matter  Mr.  Schroeder  is  simply  the  follower,  at  an 
interval,  of  St.  Paul.  We  must  work  not  on  the  object, 
but  on  the  impure  mind  affected  by  the  object.  If  the 
impure  heart  is  not  suppressed  it  is  useless  to  suppress  the 
impure  object,  while  if  the  heart  is  renewed  the  whole 
task  is  achieved.  Certainly  there  are  books,  pictures,  and 
other  things  in  life  so  unclean  that  they  can  never  be 
pure  even  to  the  purest,  but  these  things  by  their  loath- 
someness are  harmless  to  all  healthy  minds  ;  they  can 
only  corrupt  minds  which  are  corrupt  already.  Unfor- 
tunately, when  ignorant  police  officials  and  custom-house 
officers  are  entrusted  with  the  task  of  searching  for  the 
obscene,  it  is  not  to  these  things  that  their  attention  is 
exclusively  directed.  Such  persons,  it  seems,  cannot 
distinguish  between  these  things  and  the  noblest  pro- 
ductions of  human  art  and  intellect,  and  the  law  has 
proved  powerless  to  set  them  right ;  in  all  civilized 
countries  the  list  is  indeed  formidable  of  the  splendid  and 

1  Theodore  Schroeder,  "  Obscene  "  Literature  and  Constitutional  Law, 
New  York,  191 1. 


IMMORALITY    AND    THE    LAW  305 

inspiring  productions,  from  the  Bible  downwards,  which 
officials  or  the  law  courts  have  been  pleased  to  declare 
"  obscene."  So  that  while  the  task  of  moralizing  the 
community  by  force  must  absolutely  fail  of  its  object,  it 
may  at  the  same  time  suffice  to  effect  much  mischief. 

It  is  one  of  the  ironies  of  history  that  the  passion  for 
extinguishing  immorality  by  law  and  administration 
should  have  arisen  in  what  used  to  be  called  Christendom. 
For  Christianity  is  precisely  the  most  brilliant  proof 
the  world  has  ever  seen  of  the  truth  that  immorality 
cannot  so  be  suppressed.  From  the  standpoint  of  classic 
Rome  Christianity  was  an  aggressive  attack  on  Roman 
morality  from  every  side.  It  was  not  so  only  in  appear- 
ance, but  in  reality,  as  modern  historians  fully  recognize.1 
Merely  as  a  new  religion  Christianity  would  have  been 
received  with  calm  indifference,  even  with  a  certain 
welcome,  as  other  new  religions  were  received.  But 
Christianity  denied  the  supremacy  of  the  State,  carried  on 
an  anti-military  propaganda  in  the  army,  openly  flouted 
established  social  conventions,  loosened  family  life, 
preached  and  practised  asceticism  to  an  age  that  was 
already  painfully  aware  that,  above  all  things,  it  needed 
men.  The  fatal  though  doubtless  inevitable  step  was 
taken  of  attempting  to  suppress  the  potent  poison  of  this 
manifold  immorality  by  force.     The  triumph  of   Chris- 

1  Thus  Sir  Samuel  Dill  (Roman  Society,  p.  n)  calls  attention  to  the 
letter  of  St.  Paulinus  who,  when  the  Empire  was  threatened  by  bar- 
barians, wrote  to  a  Roman  soldier  that  Christianity  is  incompatible 
with  family  life,  with  citizenship,  with  patriotism,  and  that  soldiers 
are  doomed  to  eternal  torment.  Christians  frequently  showed  no 
respect  for  law  or  its  representatives.  "  Many  Christian  confessors  " 
says  Sir  W.  M.  Ramsay  (The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire,  chap. 
X 


306        THE   TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

tianity  was  largely  due  to  the  fine  qualities  which  were 
brought  out  by  that  annealing  process,  and  the  splendid 
prestige  which  the  process  itself  assured.  Yet  the  method 
of  warfare  which  it  had  so  brilliantly  proved  to  be  worth- 
less was  speedily  adopted  by  Christianity  itself,  and  is 
even  yet,  at  intervals,  spasmodically  applied. 

That  these  attempts  should  have  such  results  as  we  see 
is  not  surprising  when  we  remember  that  even  move- 
ments, at  the  outset,  mainly  inspired  by  moral  energy, 
rather  than  by  faith  in  moral  legislation,  when  that  energy 
becomes  reckless,  violent  and  intolerant,  lead  in  the  end 
to  results  altogether  opposed  to  the  aims  of  those  who 
initiated  them.  It  was  thus  that  Luther  has  permanently 
fortified  the  position  of  the  Popes  whom  he  assailed,  and 
that  the  Reformation  produced  the  Counter-Reformation, 
a  movement  as  formidable  and  as  enduring  as  that  which 
it  countered.  When  Luther  appeared  all  that  was  rigid 
and  inhuman  in  the  Church  was  slowly  dissolving,  cer- 
tainly not  without  an  inevitable  sediment  of  immorality, 
yet  the  solution  was  in  the  highest  degree  favourable  to 
the  development  of  the  freer  and  larger  conceptions  of  life, 
the  expansion  of  science  and  art  and  philosophy,  which 
at   that   moment   was  pre-eminently  necessary   for  the 

xv),  "went  to  extremes  in  showing  their  contempt  and  hatred  for 
their  judges.  Their  answers  to  plain  questions  were  evasive  and 
indirect  ;  they  lectured  Roman  dignitaries  as  if  the  latter  were  the 
criminals  and  they  themselves  the  judges ;  and  they  even  used  violent 
reproaches  and  coarse,  insulting  gestures."  Bouche-Leclercq  (L'ln- 
tolerance  Reiigieuse  et  le  Politique, 1911,  especially  chap,  x)  shows  how  the 
early  Christians  insisted  on  being  persecuted.  We  see  much  the  same 
attitude  to-day  among  anarchists  of  the  lower  class  (and  also,  it  may 
be  added,  sometimes  among  suffragettes),  who  may  be  regarded  as  the 
modern  analogues  of  the  early  Christians. 


IMMORALITY    AND    THE    LAW  307 

progress  of  civilisation,  and,  indirectly,  therefore,  for  the 
progress  of  morals.1  The  violence  of  the  Reformation 
not  only  resulted  in  a  new  tyranny  for  its  own  adherents 
— calling  in  turn  for  fresh  reformations  by  Puritans, 
Quakers,  Deists,  and  Freethinkers — but  it  re-established, 
and  even  to-day  continues  to  support,  that  very  tyranny 
of  the  old  Church  against  which  it  was  a  protest.  • 

When  we  try  to  regulate  the  morals  of  men  on  the  same 
uniform  pattern  we  have  to  remember  that  we  are 
touching  the  most  _  subtle,  intimate,  and  incalculable 
springs  of  action.  It  is  useless  to  apply  the  crude  methods 
of  "  suppression  "  and  "  annihilation  "  to  these  complex 
and  indestructible  forces.  When  Charles  V  retired  in 
weariness  from  the  greatest  throne  in  the  world  to  the 
solitude  of  the  monastery  at  Yuste,  he  occupied  his  leisure 
for  some  weeks  in  trying  to  regulate  two  clocks.  It  proved 
very  difficult.  One  day,  it  is  recorded,  he  turned  to  his 
assistant  and  said  :  "To  think  that  I  attempted  to  force 
the  reason  and  conscience  of  thousands  of  men  into  one 
mould,  and  I  cannot  make  two  clocks  agree  !  "    Wisdom 

1  It  may  well  be,  indeed,  that  in  all  ages  the  actual  sum  of  immorality, 
broadly  considered- — in  public  and  in  private,  in  thought  and  in  act — 
undergoes  but  slight  oscillations.  But  in  the  nature  of  its  manifesta- 
tions and  in  the  nature  of  the  manifestations  that  accompany  it, 
there  may  be  immense  fluctuations.  Tarde,  the  distinguished  thinker, 
referring  to  the  "  delicious  Catholicism  "  of  the  days  before  Luther, 
asks  :  "If  that  amiable  Christian  evolution  had  peacefully  continued 
to  our  days,  should  we  be  still  more  immoral  than  we  are  ?  It  is  doubt- 
ful, but  in  all  probability  we  should  be  enjoying  the  most  aesthetic 
and  the  least  vexatious  religion  in  the  world,  in  which  all  our  science, 
all  our  civilization,  would  have  been  free  to  progress  "  (Tarde,  La 
Logiqus  Sociale,  p.  198).  As  has  often  been  pointed  out,  it  was  along 
the  lines  indicated  by  Erasmus,  rather  than  along  the  lines  pursued  by 
Luther,  that  the  progress  of  civilization  lay. 


308        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

comes  to  the  rulers  of  men,  sometimes,  usually  when  they 
have  ceased  to  be  rulers.  It  comes  to  the  moral  legislators 
not  otherwise  than  it  comes  to  the  immoral  persons  they 
legislate  against.  "  I  act  first,"  the  French  thief  said ; 
"  then  I  think." 

It  seems  to  some  people  almost  a  paradox  to  assert 
that  immorality  should  not  be  encountered  by  physical 
force.  The  same  people  would  willingly  admit  that 
it  is  hopeless  to  rout  a  modern  army  with  bows  and 
arrows,  even  with  the  support  of  a  fanfare  of  trumpets. 
Yet  that  metaphor,  as  we  have  seen,  altogether  fails  to 
represent  the  inadequacy  of  law  in  the  face  of  immorality. 
We  are  concerned  with  a  method  of  fighting  which  is  not 
merely  inadequate,  but,  as  has  been  demonstrated  many 
times  during  the  last  two  thousand  years,  actually  fortifies 
and  even  dignifies  the  foe  it  professes  to  attack.  But  the 
failure  of  physical  force  to  suppress  the  spiritual  evil  of 
immorality  by  no  means  indicates  that  a  like  failure 
would  attend  the  more  rational  tactics  of  opposing  a 
spiritual  force  by  spiritual  force.  The  virility  of  our 
morals  is  not  proved  by  any  weak  attempt  to  call  in  the 
aid  of  the  secular  arm  of  law  or  the  ecclesiastical  arm  of 
theology.  If  a  morality  cannot  by  its  own  proper  virtue 
hold  its  opposing  immorality  in  check  then  there  is 
something  wrong  with  that  morality.  It  runs  the  risk  of 
encountering  a  fresh  and  more  vigorous  movement  of 
morality.  Men  begin  to  think  that,  if  not  the  whole 
truth,  there  is  yet  a  real  element  of  truth  in  the  assertion 
of  Nietzsche :  "  We  believe  that  severity,  violence, 
slavery,  danger  in  the  street  and  in  the  heart,  secrecy, 


IMMORALITY    AND    THE    LAW  309 

stoicism,  tempter's  art  and  devilry  of  every  kind,  every- 
thing wicked,  tyrannical,  predatory  and  serpentine  in 
man,  serves  as  well  for  the  elevation  of  the  human  species 
as  its  opposite."1  To  ignore  altogether  the  affirmation  of 
that  opposing  morality,  it  may  be,  would  be  to  breed  a 
race  of  weaklings,  fatally  doomed  to  succumb  helplessly 
to  the  first  breath  of  temptation. 

Although  we  are  passing  through  a  wave  of  moral 
legislation,  there  are  yet  indications  that  a  sounder 
movement  is  coming  into  action.  The  demand  for  the 
teaching  of  sexual  hygiene  which  parents,  teachers,  and 
physicians  in  Germany,  the  United  States  and  elsewhere, 
are  now  striving  to  formulate  and  to  supply  will,  if  it  is 
wisely  carried  out,  effect  far  more  for  public  morals  than 
all  the  legislation  in  the  world.  Inconsistently  enough, 
some  of  those  who  clamour  for  moral  legislation  also 
advocate  the  teaching  of  sexual  hygiene.  But  there  is 
no  room  for  compromise  or  combination  here.  A  training 
in  sexual  hygiene  has  no  meaning  if  it  is  not  a  training, 
for  men  and  women  alike,  in  personal  and  social  responsi- 

1  Nietzsche,  Beyond  Good  and  Evil,  chap.  n.  A  century  earlier 
Godwin  had  written  in  his  Political  Justice  (Book  VII,  chap,  vm)  : 
"  Men  are  weak  at  present  because  they  have  always  been  told  they  are 
weak  and  must  not  be  trusted  with  themselves.  Take  them  out  of  their 
shackles,  bid  them  enquire,  reason,  and  judge,  and  you  will  soon  find 
them  very  different  beings.  Tell  them  that  they  have  passions,  are 
occasionally  hasty,  intemperate,  and  injurious,  but  that  they  must 
be  trusted  with  themselves.  Tell  them  that  the  mountains  of  parch- 
ment in  which  they  have  been  hitherto  entrenched,  are  fit  only  to 
impose  upon  ages  of  superstition  and  ignorance,  that  henceforth  we 
will  have  no  dependence  but  upon  their  spontaneous  justice  ;  that,  if 
their  passions  be  gigantic,  they  must  rise  with  gigantic  energy  to  subdue 
them  ;  that  if  their  decrees  be  iniquitous,  the  iniquity  shall  be  all  their 
own." 


310        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

bility,  in  the  right  to  know  and  to  discriminate,  and  in  so 
doing  to  attain  self -conquest.  A  generation  thus  trained 
to  self-respect  and  to  respect  for  others  has  no  use  for  a 
web  of  official  regulations  to  protect  its  feeble  and  clois- 
tered virtues  from  possible  visions  of  evil,  and  an  army  of 
police  to  conduct  it  homewards  at  9  p.m.  Nor,  on  the 
other  hand,  can  any  reliable  sense  of  social  responsibility 
ever  be  developed  in  such  an  unwholesome  atmosphere 
of  petty  moral  officialdom.  The  two  methods  of  morali- 
zation  are  radically  antagonistic.  There  can  be  no  doubt 
which  of  them  we  ought  to  pursue  if  we  really  desire  to 
breed  a  firmly-fibred,  clean-minded,  and  self-reliant  race 
of  manly  men  and  womanly  women. 


X 

THE    WAR    AGAINST    WAR 

Why  the  Problem  of  War  is  specially  urgent  To-day — The  Beneficial 
Effects  of  War  in  Barbarous  Ages — Civilization  »enders  the  Ulti- 
mate Disappearance  of  War  Inevitable — The  Introduction  of  Law 
in  disputes  between  Individuals  involves  the  Introduction  of  Law 
in  disputes  between  Nations — But  there  must  be  Force  behind 
Law — Henry  IV's  Attempt  to  Confederate  Europe — Every  Inter- 
national Tribunal  of  Arbitration  must  be  able  to  enforce  its  De- 
cisions— The  Influences  making  for  the  Abolition  of  Warfare — 
(i)  Growth  of  International  Opinion— (2)  International  Financial 
Development — (3)  The  Decreasing  Pressure  of  Population — (4) 
The  Natural  Exhaustion  of  the  Warlike  Spirit — (5)  The  Spread 
of  Anti-military  Doctrines — (6)  The  overgrowth  of  Armaments — 
(7)  The  Dominance  of  Social  Reform — War  Incompatible  with  an 
Advanced  Civilization — Nations  as  Trustees  for  Humanity — The 
Impossibility  of  Disarmament — The  Necessity  of  Force  to  ensure 
peace — The  Federated  State  of  the  Future — The  Decay  of  War 
still  leaves  the  Possibilities  of  Daring  and  Heroism. 

THERE  are,  no  doubt,  special  reasons  why  at 
the  present  time  war  and  the  armaments  of 
war  should  appear  an  intolerable  burden  which 
must  be  thrown  off  as  soon  as  possible  if  the  task  of  social 
hygiene  is  not  to  be  seriously  impeded.  But  the  abolition 
of  the  ancient  method  of  settling  international  disputes 
by  warfare  is  not  a  problem  which  depends  for  its  solution 
on  the  conditions  of  the  moment.  It  is  implicit  in  the 
natural  development  of  the  process  of  civilization.  At 
one  stage,  no  doubt,  warfare  plays  an  important  part  in 
constituting    states    and    so,    indirectly,    in    promoting 


312        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

civilization.  But  civilization  tends  slowly  but  surely  to 
substitute  for  war  in  the  later  stages  of  this  process  the 
methods  of  law,  or,  in  any  case,  methods  which,  while 
not  always  unobjectionable,  avoid  the  necessity  for  any 
breach  of  the  peace.1  As  soon,  indeed,  as  in  primitive 
society  two  individuals  engage  in  a  dispute  which  they 
are  compelled  to  settle  not  by  physical  force  but  by  a 
resort  to  an  impartial  tribunal,  the  thin  end  of  the  wedge 
is  introduced,  and  the  ultimate  destruction  of  war  becomes 
merely  a  matter  of  time.  If  it  is  unreasonable  for 
two  individuals  to  fight  it  is  unreasonable  for  two  groups 
of  individuals  to  fight.2 

1  The  respective  parts  of  war  and  law  in  the  constitution  of  states 
are  clearly  and  concisely  set  forth  by  Edward  Jenks  in  his  little  primer, 
A  History  of  Politics.  Steinmetz,  who  argues  in  favour  of  the  preserva- 
tion of  the  method  of  war,  in  his  book  Die  Philosophic  des  Krieges 
p.  303)  states  that  "  not  a  single  element  of  the  warlike  spirit,  not  one  of 
the  psychic  conditions  of  war,  is  lacking  to  the  civilized  European 
peoples  of  to-day."  That  may  well  be,  although  there  is  much  reason  to 
believe  that  they  have  all  very  considerably  diminished.  Such  warlike 
spirit  as  exists  to-day  must  be  considerably  discounted  by  the  fact 
that  those  who  manifest  it  are  not  usually  the  people  who  would 
actually  have  to  do  the  fighting.  It  is  more  important  to  point  out 
(as  is  done  in  a  historical  sketch  of  warfare  by  A.  Sutherland,  Nine- 
teenth Century,  April,  1899)  that,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  war  is  becoming 
both  less  frequent  and  less  ferocious.  In  England,  for  instance,  where 
at  one  period  the  population  spent  a  great  part  of  their  time  in  fighting, 
there  has  practically  been  no  war  for  two  and  a  half  centuries.  When 
the  ancient  Germans  swept  through  Spain  (as  Procopius,  who  was  an  eye- 
witness, tells)  they  slew  every  human  being  they  met,  including  women 
and  children,  until  millions  had  perished.  The  laws  of  war,  though  not 
always  observed,  are  constantly  growing  more  humane,  and  Sutherland 
estimates  that  warfare  is  now  less  than  one-hundredth  part  as  de- 
structive as  it  was  in  the  early  Middle  Ages. 

8  This  inevitable  extension  of  the  sphere  of  law  from  the  settlement 
of  disputes  between  individuals  to  disputes  between  individual  states  has 
been  pointed  out  before,  and  is  fairly  obvious.  Thus  Mougins-Roque- 
fort,  a  French  lawyer,  in  his  book  De  la  Solution  Juridique  des  Conflits 


THE    WAR    AGAINST    WAR  313 

The  difficulty  has  been  that  while  it  is  quite  easy  for 
an  ordered  society  to  compel  two  individuals  to  settle 
their  differences  before  a  tribunal,  in  accordance  with 
abstractly  determined  principles  of  law  and  reason,  it  is  a 
vastly  more  difficult  matter  to  compel  two  groups  of 
individuals  so  to  settle  their  differences.  A  large  part  of 
the  history  of  all  the  great  European  countries  has  con- 
sisted in  the  progressive  conquest  and  pacification  of 
small  but  often  bellicose  states  outside,  and  even  inside, 
their  own  borders.1  This  is  the  case  even  within  a 
community.  Hobbes,  writing  in  the  midst  of  a  civil  war, 
went  so  far  as  to  lay  down  that  the  "  final  cause  "  of  a 
commonwealth  is  nothing  else  but  the  abolition  of  "  that 
miserable  condition  of  war  which  is  necessarily  consequent 
to  the  natural  passions  of  men  when  there  is  no  visible 
power  to  keep  them  in  awe."  Yet  we  see  to-day  that  even 
within  our  highly  civilized  communities  there  is  not  always 
any  adequately  awful  power  to  prevent  employers  and 
employed  from  engaging  in  what  is  little  better  than  a 
civil  war,  nor  even  to  bind  them  to  accept  the  decision  of 
an  impartial   tribunal   they  may  have   been  persuaded 

Inlemationaux  (1889),  observes  that  in  the  days  of  the  Roman  Empire, 
when  there  was  only  one  civilized  state,  any  system  of  international 
relationships  was  impossible,  but  that  as  soon  as  we  have  a  number  of 
states  forming  units  of  international  society  there  at  OHce  arises  the 
necessity  for  a  system  of  international  relationships,  just  as  some 
system  of  social  order  is  necessary  to  regulate  the  relations  of  any 
community  of  individuals. 

1  In  England,  a  small  and  compact  country,  this  process  was 
completed  at  a  comparatively  early  date.  In  France  it  was  not  until 
the  days  of  Louis  XV  (in  1756)  that  the  "  last  feudal  brigand,"  as 
Taine  calls  the  Marquis  de  Pleumartin  in  Poitou,  was  captured  and 
beheaded. 


3i4        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

to  appeal  to.  The  smallest  state  can  compel  its  individual 
citizens  to  keep  the  peace  ;  a  large  state  can  compel  a 
small  state  to  do  so  ;  but  hitherto  there  has  been  no 
guarantee  possible  that  large  states,  or  even  large  compact 
groups  within  the  state,  should  themselves  keep  the 
peace.  They  commit  what  injustice  they  please,  for  there 
is  no  visible  power  to  keep  them  in  awe.  We  have  attained 
a  condition  in  which  a  state  is  able  to  enforce  a  legal  and 
peaceful  attitude  in  its  own  individual  citizens  towards 
each  other.  The  state  is  the  guardian  of  its  citizens' 
peace,  but  the  old  problem  recurs  :  Quis  custodiet  ipsos 
custodes  ? 

It  is  obvious  that  this  difficulty  increases  as  the  size  of 
states  increases.  To  compel  a  small  state  to  keep  the 
peace  by  absorbing  it  if  it  fails  to  do  so  is  always  an  easy 
and  even  tempting  process  to  a  neighbouring  larger  state. 
This  process  was  once  carried  out  on  a  complete  scale, 
when  practically  the  whole  known  world  was  brought  under 
the  sway  of  Rome.  "  War  has  ceased,"  Plutarch  was  able 
to  declare  in  the  days  of  the  Roman  Empire,  and,  though 
himself  an  enthusiastic  Greek,  he  was  unbounded  in  his 
admiration  of  the  beneficence  of  the  majestic  Pax  Romana, 
and  never  tempted  by  any  narrow  spirit  of  patriotism  to 
desire  the  restoration  of  his  own  country's  glories.  But 
the  Roman  organization  broke  up,  and  no  single  state 
will  ever  be  strong  enough  to  restore  it. 

Any  attempt  to  establish  orderly  legal  relationships 
between  states  must,  therefore,  be  carried  out  by  the 
harmonious  co-operation  of  those  states.  At  the  end  of 
the  sixteenth  century  a  great   French  statesman,  Sully, 


THE    WAR    AGAINST    WAR  315 

inspired  Henry  IV  with  a  scheme  of  a  Council  of  Con- 
federated European  Christian  States ;  each  of  these 
states,  fifteen  in  number,  was  to  send  four  representatives 
to  the  Council,  which  was  to  sit  at  Metz  or  Cologne  and 
regulate  the  differences  between  the  constituent  states  of 
the  Confederation.  The  army  of  the  Confederation  was  to 
be  maintained  in  common,  and  used  chiefly  to  keep  the 
peace,  to  prevent  one  sovereign  from  interfering  with  any 
other,  and  also,  if  necessary,  to  repel  invasion  of  bar- 
barians from  without.  The  scheme  was  arranged  in 
concert  with  Queen  Elizabeth,  and  twelve  of  the  fifteen 
Powers  had  already  promised  their  active  co-operation 
when  the  assassination  of  Henry  destroyed  the  whole 
plan.  Such  a  Confederation  was  easier  to  arrange  then 
than  it  is  now,  but  probably  it  was  more  difficult  to  main- 
tain, and  it  can  scarcely  be  said  that  at  that  date  the 
times  were  ripe  for  so  advanced  a  scheme.1 

To-day  the  interests  of  small  states  are  so  closely 
identified  with  peace  that  it  is  seldom  difficult  to  exert 
pressure  on  them  to  maintain  it.  It  is  quite  another 
matter  with  the  large  states.    The  fact  that  during  the 

1  France,  notwithstanding  her  military  aptitude,  has  always 
taken  the  pioneering  part  in  the  pacific  movement  of  civilization. 
Even  at  the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth  century  France  produced  an 
advocate  of  international  arbitration,  Pierre  Dubois  (Petrus  de  Bosco), 
the  Norman  lawyer,  a  pupil  of  Thomas  Aquinas.  In  the  seventeenth 
century  Emeric  Cruce  proposed,  for  the  first  time,  to  admit  all  peoples, 
without  distinction  of  colour  or  religion,  to  be  represented  at  some 
central  city  where  every  state  would  have  its  perpetual  ambassador 
these  representatives  forming  an  assembly  to  adjudicate  on  inter- 
national differences  (Dubois  and  Cruce  have  lately  been  studied  by 
Prof.  Vesnitch,  Revue  d'Histoire  Diplomatique,  January,  191 1).  The 
history  of  the  various  peace  projects  generally  has  been  summarily 
related  by  Lagorgette  in  Le  Role  de  la  Guerre,  190b,  Part  IV,  chap.  VI. 


316        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

past  half  century  so  much  has  been  done  by  the  larger 
states  to  aid  the  cause  of  international  arbitration,  and 
to  submit  disputes  to  international  tribunals,  shows  how 
powerful  the  motives  for  avoiding  war  are  nowadays 
becoming.  But  the  fact,  also,  that  no  country  hitherto 
has  abandoned  its  liberty  of  withdrawing  from  peaceful 
arbitration  any  question  involving  "  national  honour  ' 
shows  that  there  is  no  constituted  power  strong  enough 
to  control  large  states.  For  the  reservation  of  questions 
of  national  honour  from  the  sphere  of  law  is  as  absurd 
as  would  be  any  corresponding  limitation  by  individuals 
of  their  liability  for  their  acts  before  the  law ;  it  is  as 
though  a  man  were  to  say  :  "  If  I  commit  a  theft  I  am 
willing  to  appear  before  the  court,  and  will  probably  pay 
the  penalty  demanded  ;  but  if  it  is  a  question  of  murder, 
then  my  vital  interests  are  at  stake,  and  I  deny  altogether 
the  right  of  the  court  to  intervene."  It  is  a  reservation 
fatal  to  peace,  and  could  not  be  accepted  if  pleaded  at 
the  bar  of  any  international  tribunal  with  the  power  to 
enforce  its  decisions.  "  Imagine,"  says  Edward'  Jenks, 
in  his  History  of  Politics,  "  a  modern  judge  '  persuading  ' 
Mr.  William  Sikes  to  '  make  it  up  '  with  the  relatives  of 
his  victim,  and,  on  his  remaining  obdurate,  leaving  the 
two  families  to  fight  the  matter  out."  Yet  that  is  what 
was  in  some  degree  done  in  England  until  medieval  times 
as  regards  individual  crimes,  and  it  is  what  is  still  done 
as  regards  national  crimes,  in  so  far  as  the  appeal  to 
arbitration  is  limited  and  voluntary.  The  proposals, 
therefore — though  not  yet  accepted  by  any  Government 
—lately  mooted  in  the  United  States,  in  England,  and  in 


THE    WAR    AGAINST    WAR  317 

France,  to  submit  international  disputes,  without  re- 
servation, to  an  impartial  tribunal  represent  an  advance 
of  peculiar  significance. 

The  abolition  of  collective  fighting  is  so  desirable  an 
extension  of  the  abolition  of  individual  fighting,  and  its 
introduction  has  waited  so  long  the  establishment  of 
some  high  compelling  power — for  the  influence  of  the 
Religion  of  Peace  has  in  this  matter  been  less  than  nil — 
that  it  is  evident  that  only  the  coincidence  of  very 
powerful  and  peculiar  factors  could  have  brought  the 
question  into  the  region  of  practical  politics  in  our  own 
time.  There  are  several  such  factors,  most  of  which  have 
been  developing  during  a  long  period,  but  none  have  been 
clearly  recognized  until  recent  years.  It  may  be  worth 
while  to  indicate  the  great  forces  now  warring  against  war. 

(1)  Growth  of  International  Opinion.  There  can  be  no 
doubt  whatever  that  during  recent  years,  and  especially 
in  the  more  democratic  countries,  an  international  con- 
sensus of  public  opinion  has  gradually  grown  up,  making 
itself  the  voice,  like  a  Greek  chorus,  of  an  abstract  justice. 
It  is  quite  true  that  of  this  justice,  as  of  justice  generally, 
it  may  be  said  that  it  has  wide  limits.  Renan  declared 
once,  in  a  famous  allocution,  that  "  what  is  called  indul- 
gence is,  most  often,  only  justice,"  and,  at  the  other 
extreme,  Remy  de  Gourmont  has  said  that  "  injustice  is 
sometimes  a  part  of  justice ;  "  in  other  words,  there  are 
varying  circumstances  in  which  justice  may  properly 
be  tempered  either  with  mercy  or  with  severity.  In  any 
case,  and  however  it  may  be  qualified,  a  popular  inter- 
national voice  generously  pronouncing  itself  in  favour  of 


318        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

justice,  and  resonantly  condemning  any  Government 
which  clashes  against  justice,  is  now  a  factor  of  the  inter- 
national situation.  It  is,  moreover,  tending  to  become  a 
factor  having  a  certain  influence  on  affairs.  This  was  the 
case  during  the  South  African  War,  when  England,  by 
offending  this  international  sense  of  justice,  fell  into  a 
discredit  which  had  many  actual  unpleasant  results  and 
narrowly  escaped,  there  is  some  reason  to  believe,  proving 
still  more  serious.  The  same  voice  was  heard  with 
dramatically  sudden  and  startling  effect  when  Ferrer 
was  shot  at  Barcelona.  Ferrer  was  a  person  absolutely 
unknown  to  the  man  in  the  street ;  he  was  indeed  little 
more  than  a  name  even  to  those  who  knew  Spain  ;  few 
could  be  sure,  except  by  a  kind  of  intuition,  that  he  was 
the  innocent  victim  of  a  judicial  murder,  for  it  is  only  now 
that  the  fact  is  being  slowly  placed  beyond  dispute.  Yet 
immediately  after  Ferrer  was  shot  within  the  walls  of 
Monjuich  a  great  shout  of  indignation  was  raised,  with 
almost  magical  suddenness  and  harmony,  throughout  the 
civilized  world,  from  Italy  to  Belgium,  from  England  to 
Argentina.  Moreover,  this  voice  was  so  decisive  and  so 
loud  that  it  acted  like  those  legendary  trumpet-blasts 
which  shattered  the  walls  of  Jericho  ;  in  a  few  days  the 
Spanish  Government,  with  a  powerful  minister  at  its 
head,  had  fallen.  The  significance  of  this  event  we  cannot 
easily  overestimate.  For  the  first  time  in  history,  the 
voice  of  international  public  opinion,  unsupported  by 
pressure,  political,  social,  or  diplomatic,  proved  potent 
enough  to  avenge  an  act  of  injustice  by  destroying  a 
Government.     A  new  force  has  appeared  in  the  world, 


THE    WAR    AGAINST    WAR  319 

and  it  tends  to  operate  against  those  countries  which  are 
guilty  of  injustice,  whether  that  injustice  is  exerted 
against  a  State  or  even  only  against  a  single  obscure 
individual.  The  modern  developments  of  telegraphy 
and  the  Press — unfavourable  as  the  Press  is  in  many 
respects  to  the  cause  of  international  harmony — have 
placed  in  the  hands  of  peace  this  new  weapon  against  war. 
(2)  International  Financial  Development.  There  is 
another  international  force  which  expresses  itself  in  the 
same  sense.  The  voice  of  abstract  justice  raised  against 
war  is  fortified  by  the  voice  of  concrete  self-interest.  The 
interests  of  the  propertied  classes,  and  therefore  of  the 
masses  dependent  upon  them,  are  to-day  so  widely  dis- 
tributed throughout  the  world  that  whenever  any 
country  is  plunged  into  a  disastrous  war  there  arises  in 
every  other  country,  especially  in  rich  and  prosperous 
lands  with  most  at  stake,  a  voice  of  self-interest  in 
harmony  with  the  voice  of  justice.  It  is  sometimes  said 
that  wars  are  in  the  interest  of  capital,  and  of  capital 
alone,  and  that  they  are  engineered  by  capitalists  mas- 
querading under  imposing  humanitarian  disguises.  That 
is  doubtless  true  to  the  extent  that  every  war  cannot  fail 
to  benefit  some  section  of  the  capitalistic  world,  which 
will  therefore  favour  it,  but  it  is  true  to  that  extent  only. 
The  old  notion  that  war  and  the  acquisition  of  territories 
encouraged  trade  by  opening  up  new  markets  has  proved 
fallacious.  The  extension  of  trade  is  a  matter  of  tariffs 
rather  than  of  war,  and  in  any  case  the  trade  of  a  country 
with  its  own  acquisitions  by  conquest  is  a  comparatively 
insignificant  portion  of  its  total  trade.     But  even  if  the 


320        THE   TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

financial  advantages  of  war  were  much  greater  than  they 
are,  they  would  be  more  than  compensated  by  the  dis- 
advantages which  nowadays  attend  war.  International 
financial  relationships  have  come  to  constitute  a  network 
of  interests  so  vast,  so  complicated,  so  sensitive,  that  the 
whole  thrills  responsively  to  any  disturbing  touch,  and 
no  one  can  say  beforehand  what  widespread  damage  may 
not  be  done  by  shock  even  at  a  single  point.  When  a 
country  is  at  war  its  commerce  is  at  once  disorganized, 
that  is  to  say  that  its  shipping,  and  the  shipping  of  all 
the  countries  that  carry  its  freights,  is  thrown  out  of  gear 
to  a  degree  that  often  cannot  fail  to  be  internationally 
disastrous.  Foreign  countries  cannot  send  in  the  imports 
that  lie  on  their  wharves  for  the  belligerent  country,  nor 
can  they  get  out  of  it  the  exports  they  need  for  their  own 
maintenance  or  luxury.  Moreover,  all  the  foreign  money 
invested  in  the  belligerent  country  is  depreciated  and 
imperilled.  The  international  voice  of  trade  and  finance 
is,  therefore,  to-day  mainly  on  the  side  of  peace. 

It  must  be  added  that  this  voice  is  not,  as  it  might 
seem,  a  selfish  voice  only.  It  is  justifiable  not  only  in 
immediate  international  interests,  but  even  in  the  ulti- 
mate interests  of  the  belligerent  country,  and  not  less  so 
if  that  country  should  prove  victorious.  So  far  as  business 
and  money  are  concerned,  a  country  gains  nothing  by  a 
successful  war,  even  though  that  war  involves  the  ac- 
quisition of  immense  new  provinces  ;  after  a  great  war 
a  conquered  country  may  possess  more  financial  stability 
than  its  conqueror,  and  both  may  stand  lower  in  this 
respect  than  some  other  country  which  is  internationally 


THE    WAR    AGAINST   WAR  321 

guaranteed  against  war.  Such  points  as  these  have  of 
late  been  ably  argued  by  Norman  Angell  in  his  remarkable 
book,  The  Great  Illusion,  and  for  the  most  part  convinc- 
ingly illustrated.1  As  was  long  since  said,  the  ancients 
cried,  Vcb  vidis  !    We  have  learnt  to  cry,  Vcb  victorious ! 

It  may,  indeed,  be  added  that  the  general  tendency  of 
war — putting  aside  peoples  altogether  lacking  in  stamina 
— is  to  moralize  the  conquered  and  to  demoralise  the 
conquerors.  This  effect  is  seen  alike  on  the  material  and 
the  spiritual  sides.  Conquest  brings  self-conceit  and 
intolerance,  the  reckless  inflation  and  dissipation  of 
energies.  Defeat  brings  prudence  and  concentration  ; 
it  ennobles  and  fortifies.  All  the  glorious  victories  of  the 
first  Napoleon  achieved  less  for  France  than  the  crushing 
defeat  of  the  third  Napoleon.  The  triumphs  left  en- 
feeblement ;  the  defeat  acted  as  a  strong  tonic  which  is 
still  working  beneficently  to-day.  The  corresponding 
reverse  process  has  been  at  work  in  Germany  :  the 
German  soil  that  Napoleon  ploughed  yielded  a  Moltke 
and  a  Bismarck,2  while  to-day,  however  mistakenly,  the 
German  Press  is  crying  out  that  only  another  war — it 
ought  in  honesty  to  say  an  unsuccessful  war — can  restore 
the  nation's  flaccid  muscle.   It  is  yet  too  early  to  see  the 

1  The  same  points  had  previously  been  brought  forward  by  others, 
although  not  so  vigorously  enforced.  Thus  the  well-known  Belgian 
economist  and  publicist,  Emile  de  Laveleye,  pointed  out  {Pall  Mall 
Gazette,  4th  August,  1888)  that  "  the  happiest  countries  are  incon- 
testably  the  smallest  :  Switzerland,  Norway,  Luxembourg,  and  still 
more  the  Republics  of  San  Marino  and  Val  d'Andorre  "  ;  and  that "  coun- 
tries in  general,  even  when  victorious,  do  not  profit  by  their  conquests." 

*  Bismarck  himself  declared  that  without  the  deep  shame  of  the 
German  defeat  at  Jena  in  1806  the  revival  of  German  national  feeling 
would  have  been  impossible. 
Y 


322        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

results  of  the  Russo-Japanese  War,  but  already  there  are 
signs  that  by  industrial  overstrain  and  the  repression  of 
individual  thought  Japan  is  threatening  to  enfeeble  the 
physique  and  to  destroy  the  high  spirit  of  the  indomitable 
men  to  whom  she  owed  her  triumph. 

(3)  The  Decreasing  Pressure  of  Population.  It  was  at 
one  time  commonly  said,  and  is  still  sometimes  repeated, 
that  the  pressure  of  over-population  is  the  chief  cause  of 
wars.  That  is  a  statement  which  requires  a  very  great  deal 
of  qualification.  It  is,  indeed,  possible  that  the  great 
hordes  of  warlike  barbarians  from  the  North  and  the  East 
which  invaded  Europe  in  early  times,  sometimes  more 
or  less  overwhelming  the  civilized  world,  were  the  result 
of  a  rise  in  the  birth-rate  and  an  excess  of  population 
beyond  the  means  of  subsistence.  But  this  is  far  from 
certain,  for  we  know  absolutely  nothing  concerning  the 
birth-rate  of  these  invading  peoples  either  before  or 
during  the  period  of  their  incursions.  Again,  it  is  certain 
that,  in  modern  times,  a  high  and  rising  birth-rate  pre- 
sents a  favourable  condition  for  war.  A  war  distracts 
attention  from  the  domestic  disturbances  and  economic 
wretchedness  which  a  too  rapid  growth  of  population 
necessarily  produces,  while  at  the  same  time  tending  to 
draw  away  and  destroy  the  surplus  population  which 
causes  this  disturbance  and  wretchedness.  Yet  there  are 
other  ways  of  meeting  this  over-population  beside  the 
crude  method  of  war.  Social  reform  and  emigration 
furnish  equally  effective  and  much  more  humane  methods 
of  counteracting  such  pressure.  No  doubt  the  over- 
population resulting  from  an  excessively  high  birth-rate, 


THE    WAR    AGAINST    WAR  323 

when  not  met,  as  it  tends  to  be,  by  a  correspondingly  high 
death-rate  from  disease,  may  be  regarded  as  a  pre- 
disposing cause  of  war,  but  to  assert  that  it  is  the  pre- 
eminent cause  is  to  go  far  beyond  the  evidence  at  present 
available. 

To  whatever  degree,  however,  it  may  have  been  potent 
in  causing  war  in  the  past,  it  is  certain  that  the  pressure 
of  population  as  a  cause  of  war  will  be  eliminated  in  the 
future.  The  only  nations  nowadays  that  can  afford  to 
make  war  on  the  grand  scale  are  the  wealthy  and  civilized 
nations.  But  civilization  excludes  a  high  birth-rate  : 
there  has  never  been  any  exception  to  that  law,  nor  can  we 
conceive  any  exceptions,  for  it  is  more  than  a  social  law ; 
it  is  a  biological  law.  Russia,  a  still  imperfectly  civilized 
country,  stands  apart  in  having  a  very  high  birth-rate, 
but  it  also  has  a  very  high  death-rate,  and  even  should  it 
happen  that  in  Russia  improved  social  conditions  lower 
the  death-rate  before  affecting  the  birth-rate,  there  is 
still  ample  room  within  Russian  territory  for  the  conse- 
quent increase  of  population.  Among  all  the  other  nations 
which  are  considered  to  threaten  the  world's  peace,  the 
birth-rate  is  rapidly  falling.  This  is  so,  for  instance, 
as  regards  England  and  Germany.  Germany,  especially, 
it  was  once  thought — though  in  actual  fact  Germany  has 
not  fought  for  over  forty  years — had  an  interest  in  going  to 
war  in  order  to  find  an  outlet  for  her  surplus  population, 
compelled,  in  the  absence  of  suitable  German  colonies, 
to  sacrifice  its  patriotism  and  lose  its  nationality  by 
emigrating  to  foreign  countries.  But  the  German  birth- 
rate is  falling,  German  emigration  is  decreasing,  and  the 


324        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

immense  growth  of  German  industry  is  easily  able  to 
absorb  the  new  generation.  Thus  the  declining  birth-rate 
of  civilized  lands  will  alone  largely  serve  in  the  end  to 
eliminate  warfare,  partly  by  removing  one  of  its  causes, 
partly  because  the  increased  value  of  human  life  will  make 
war  too  costly. 

(4)  The  Natural  Exhaustion  of  the  Warlike  Spirit. 
It  is  a  remarkable  tendency  of  the  warlike  spirit — fer- 
quently  emphasized  in  recent  years  by  the  distinguished 
zoologist,  President  D.  S.  Jordan,  who  here  follows 
Novikov1 — that  it  tends  to  exterminate  itself.  Fighting 
stocks,  and  peoples  largely  made  up  of  righting  stocks,  are 
naturally  killed  out,  and  the  field  is  left  to  the  unwarlike. 
It  is  only  the  prudent,  those  who  fight  and  run  away, 
who  live  to  fight  another  day ;  and  they  transmit  their 
prudence  to  their  offspring.  Great  Britain  is  a  conspicu- 
ous example  of  a  land  which,  being  an  island,  was  neces- 
sarily peopled  by  predatory  and  piratical  invaders.  A 
long  series  of  warlike  and  adventurous  peoples — Celts, 
Romans,  Anglo-Saxons,  Danes,  Normans — built  up  Eng- 
land and  imparted  to  it  their  spirit.  The  English  were,  it 
was  said,  "  a  people  for  whom  pain  and  death  are  nothing, 
and  who  only  fear  hunger  and  boredom."  But  for  over 
eight  hundred  years  they  have  never  been  reinforced  by 
new  invaders,  and  the  inevitable  consequences  have 
followed.  There  has  been  a  gradual  killing  out  of  the 
warlike  stocks,  a  process  immensely  acclerated  during  the 

1  D.  Starr  Jordan,  The  Human  Harvest,  1907  ;  J.  Novikov,  La 
Guerre  etses  Pretendus  Bienf aits,  1894,  chap,  iv;  Novikov  here  argued 
that  the  selection  of  war  eliminates  not  the  feeble  but  the  strong,  and 
tends  to  produce,  therefore,  a  survival  of  the  unfittest. 


THE    WAR    AGAINST    WAR  325 

nineteenth  century  by  a  vast  emigration  of  the  more 
adventurous  elements  in  the  population,  pressed  out  of 
the  overcrowded  country  by  the  reckless  and  unchecked 
increase  of  the  population  which  occurred  during  the  first 
three-quarters  of  that  century.  The  result  is  that  the 
English  (except  sometimes  when  they  happen  to  be 
journalists)  cannot  now  be  described  as  a  warlike  people. 
Old  legends  tell  of  British  heroes  who,  when  their  legs 
were  hacked  away,  still  fought  upon  the  stumps.  Modern 
poets  feel  that  to  picture  a  British  warrior  of  to-day  in 
this  attitude  would  be  somewhat  far-fetched.  The 
historian  of  the  South  African  War  points  out,  again  and 
again,  that  the  British  leaders  showed  a  singular  lack  of 
the  fighting  spirit.  During  that  war  English  generals 
seldom  cared  to  engage  the  enemy's  forces  except  when 
their  own  forces  greatly  outnumbered  them,  and  on  many 
occasions  they  surrendered  immediately  they  realized 
that  they  were  themselves  outnumbered.  Those  reckless 
Englishmen  who  boldly  sailed  out  from  their  little  island 
to  face  the  Spanish  Armada  were  long  ago  exterminated  ; 
an  admirably  prudent  and  cautious  race  has  been  left 
alive. 

It  is  the  same  story  elsewhere.  The  French  long 
cherished  the  tradition  of  military  glory,  and  no  country 
has  fought  so  much.  We  see  the  result  to-day.  In  no 
country  is  the  attitude  of  the  intellectual  classes  so  calm 
and  so  reasonable  on  the  subject  of  war,  and  nowhere  is 
the  popular  hostility  to  war  so  strongly  marked.1    Spain 


1  •• 


The  most  demoralizing  features  in  French  military  life,"  says 
Professor    Guerard,   a   highly   intelligent   observer,    "  are   due   to   an 


326        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

furnishes  another  instance  which  is  even  still  more  de- 
cisive. The  Spanish  were  of  old  a  pre-eminently  warlike 
people,  capable  of  enduring  all  hardships,  never  fearing 
to  face  death.  Their  aggressively  warlike  and  adventur- 
ous spirit  sent  them  to  death  all  over  the  world.  It  cannot 
be  said,  even  to-day,  that  the  Spaniards  have  lost  their 
old  tenacity  and  hardness  of  fibre,  but  their  passion  for 
war  and  adventure  was  killed  out  three  centuries  ago. 

In  all  these  and  the  like  cases  there  has  been  a 
process  of  selective  breeding,  eliminating  the  soldierly 
stocks  and  leaving  the  others  to  breed  the  race.  The 
men  who  so  loved  fighting  that  they  fought  till  they  died 
had  few  chances  of  propagating  their  own  warlike  im- 
pulses. The  men  who  fought  and  ran  away,  the  men  who 
never  fought  at  all,  were  the  men  who  created  the  new 
generation  and  transmitted  to  it  their  own  traditions. 

This  selective  process,  moreover,  has  not  merely  acted 
automatically  ;  it  has  been  furthered  by  social  opinion 
and  social  pressure,  sometimes  very  drastically  expressed. 
Thus  in  the  England  of  the  Plantagenets  there  grew  up  a 
class  called  "  gentlemen  "—not,  as  has  sometimes  been 

incontestable  progress  in  the  French  mind — its  gradual  loss  of  faith 
and  interest  in  military  glory.  Henceforth  the  army  is  considered  as 
useless,  dangerous,  a  burden  without  a  compensation.  Authors  of 
school  books  may  be  censured  for  daring  to  print  such  opinions,  but 
the  great  majority  of  the  French  hold  them  in  their  hearts.  Nay, 
there  is  a  prevailing  suspicion  among  working  men  that  the  military 
establishment  is  kept  up  for  the  sole  benefit  of  the  capitalists,  and  the 
reckless  use  of  troops  in  case  of  labour  conflicts  gives  colour  to  the 
contention."  It  has  often  happened  that  what  the  French  think  to-day 
the  world  generally  thinks  to-morrow.  There  is  probably  a  world- 
wide significance  in  the  fact  that  French  experience  is  held  to  show 
that  progress  in  intelligence  means  the  demoralization  of  the  army. 


THE    WAR    AGAINST    WAR  327 

supposed,  a  definitely  defined  class,  though  they  were 
originally  of  good  birth  —  whose  chief  characteristic 
was  that  they  were  good  fighting  men,  and  sought 
fortune  by  fighting.  The  "  premier  gentleman  '  of 
England,  according  to  Sir  George  Sitwell,  and  an  en- 
tirely typical  representative  of  his  class,  was  a  certain 
glorious  hero  who  fought  with  Talbot  at  Agincourt,  and 
also,  as  the  unearthing  of  obscure  documents  shows,  at 
other  times  indulged  in  housebreaking,  and  in  wounding 
with  intent  to  kill,  and  in  "  procuring  the  murder  of  one 
Thomas  Page,  who  was  cut  to  pieces  while  on  his  knees 
begging  for  his  life."  There,  evidently,  was  a  state  of 
society  highly  favourable  to  the  warlike  man,  highly 
unfavourable  to  the  unwarlike  man  whom  he  slew  in  his 
wrath.  Nowadays,  however,  there  has  been  a  revaluation 
of  these  old  values.  The  cowardly  and  no  doubt  plebeian 
Thomas  Page,  multiplied  by  the  million,  has  succeeded 
in  hoisting  himself  into  the  saddle,  and  he  revenges  him- 
self by  discrediting,  hunting  into  the  slums,  and  finally 
hanging,  every  descendant  he  can  find  of  the  premier 
gentleman  of  Agincourt. 

It  must  be  added  that  the  advocates  of  the  advantages 
of  war  are  not  entitled  to  claim  this  process  of  selective 
breeding  as  one  of  the  advantages  of  war.  It  is  quite  true 
that  war  is  incompatible  with  a  high  civilization,  and  must 
in  the  end  be  superseded.  But  this  method  of  suppressing 
it  is  too  thorough.  It  involves  not  merely  the  exter- 
mination of  the  fighting  spirit,  but  of  many  excellent 
qualities,  physical  and  moral,  which  are  associated  with 
the  fighting  spirit.     Benjamin  Franklin  seems  to  have 


328        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

been  the  first  to  point  out  that  "  a  standing  army  dimin- 
ishes the  size  and  breed  of  the  human  species."  Almost 
in  Franklin's  lifetime  that  was  demonstrated  on  a 
wholesale  scale,  for  there  seems  little  reason  to  doubt 
that  the  size  and  stature  of  the  French  nation  have  been 
permanently  diminished  by  the  constant  levies  of  young 
recruits,  the  flower  of  the  population,  whom  Napoleon 
sent  out  to  death  in  their  first  manhood  and  still  childless. 
Fine  physical  breed  involves  also  fine  qualities  of  virility 
and  daring  which  are  needed  for  other  purposes  than 
fighting.  In  so  far  as  the  selective  breeding  of  war  kills 
these  out,  its  results  are  imperfect,  and  could  be  better 
attained  by  less  radical  methods. 

(5)  The  Growth  of  the  Anti-Military  Spirit.  The  decay 
of  the  warlike  spirit  by  the  breeding  out  of  fighting 
stocks  has  in  recent  years  been  reinforced  by  a  more  acute 
influence  of  which  in  the  near  future  we  shall  certainly 
hear  more.  This  is  the  spirit  of  anti-militarism.  This 
spirit  is  an  inevitable  result  of  the  decay  of  the  fighting 
spirit.  In  a  certain  sense  it  is  also  complementary  to  it. 
The  survival  of  non-fighting  stocks  by  the  destruction 
of  the  fighting  stocks  works  most  effectually  in  countries 
having  a  professional  army.  The  anti-military  spirit,  on 
the  contrary,  works  effectually  in  countries  having  a 
national  army  in  which  it  is  compulsory  for  all  young 
citizens  to  serve,  for  it  is  only  in  such  countries  that  the 
anti-militarist  can,  by  refusing  to  serve,  take  an  influen- 
tial position  as  a  martyr  in  the  cause  of  peace. 

Among  the  leading  nations,  it  is  in  France  that  the 
spirit  of  anti-militarism  has  taken  the  deepest  hold  of 


THE    WAR    AGAINST    WAR  329 

the  people,  though  in  some  smaller  lands,  notably  among 
the  obstinately  peaceable  inhabitants  of  Holland,  the  same 
spirit  also  flourishes.  Herve,  who  is  a  leader  of  the 
insurrectional  socialists,  as  they  are  commonly  called 
in  opposition  to  the  purely  parliamentary  socialists  led 
by  Jaures, — though  the  insurrectional  socialists  also  use 
parliamentary  methods, — may  be  regarded  as  the  most 
conspicuous  champion  of  anti-militarism,  and  many  of 
his  followers  have  suffered  imprisonment  as  the  penalty 
of  their  convictions.  In  France  the  peasant  proprietors 
in  the  country  and  the  organized  workers  in  the  town  are 
alike  sympathetic  to  anti-militarism.  The  syndicalists, 
or  labour  unionists  with  the  Confederation  Generale  du 
Travail  as  their  central  organization,  are  not  usually 
anxious  to  imitate  what  they  consider  the  unduly  timid 
methods  of  English  trade  unionists  ;x  they  tend  to  be 
revolutionary  and  anti-military.  The  Congress  of  delegates 
of  French  Trade  Unions,  held  at  Toulouse  in  1910,  passed 
the  significant  resolution  that  "  a  declaration  of  war 
should  be  followed  by  the  declaration  of  a  general  revolu- 
tionary strike."  The  same  tendency,  though  in  a  less 
radical  form,  is  becoming  international,  and  the  great 
International  Socialist  Congress  at  Copenhagen  has  passed 
a  resolution  instructing  the  International  Bureau  to  "  take 
the  opinion  of  the  organized  workers  of  the  world  on  the 


1  The  influence  of  Syndicalism  has,  however,  already  reached  the 
English  Labour  Movement,  and  an  ill-advised  prosecution  by  the 
English  Government  must  have  immensely  aided  in  extending  and 
fortifying  that  influence. 


330        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

utility  of  a  general  strike  in  preventing  war."1  Even  the 
English  working  classes  are  slowly  coming  into  line.  At 
a  Conference  of  Labour  Delegates,  held  at  Leicester  in 
ign,  to  consider  the  Copenhagen  resolution,  the  policy 
of  the  anti-military  general  strike  was  defeated  by  only 
a  narrow  majority,  on  the  ground  that  it  required  further 
consideration,  and  might  be  detrimental  to  political 
action  ;  but  as  most  of  the  leaders  are  in  favour  of  the 
strike  policy  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  this  method  of 
combating  war  will  shortly  be  the  accepted  policy  of  the 
English  Labour  movement.  In  carrying  out  such  a 
policy  the  Labour  Party  expects  much  help  from  the 
growing  social  and  political  power  of  women.  The  most 
influential  literary  advocate  of  the  Peace  movement,  and 
one  of  the  earliest,  has  been  a  woman,  the  Baroness 
Bertha  von  Suttner,  and  it  is  held  to  be  incredible  that 
the  wives  and  mothers  of  the  people  will  use  their  power 
to  support  an  institution  which  represents  the  most 
brutal  method  of  destroying  their  husbands  and  sons. 
"  The  cause  of  woman,"  says  Novikov,  "  is  the  cause  of 
peace."  "  We  pay  the  first  cost  on  all  human  life,"  says 
Olive  Schreiner.2 

1  Some  small  beginnings  have  already  been  made.  "  The  greatest 
gain  ever  yet  won  for  the  cause  of  peace,"  writes  Mr.  H.  W.  Nevinson, 
the  well-known  war  correspondent  (Peace  and  War  in  the  Balance, 
p.  47),  "  was  the  refusal  of  the  Catalonian  reservists  to  serve  in  the  war 
against  the  Riff  mountaineers  of  Morocco  in  July,  1909.  ...  So 
Barcelona  flared  to  heaven,  and  for  nearly  a  week  the  people  held  the 
vast  city.  I  have  seen  many  noble,  as  well  as  many  terrible,  events, 
but  none  more  noble  or  of  finer  promise  than  the  sudden  uprising  of 
the  Catalan  working  people  against  a  dastardly  and  inglorious  war, 
waged  for  the  benefit  of  a  few  speculators  in  Paris  and  Madrid." 

2  J.  Novikov,  Le  Federation  de  V Europe,  chap.  iv.    Olive  Schreiner, 


THE    WAR    AGAINST    WAR  331 

The  anti-militarist,  as  things  are  at  present,  exposes 
himself  not  only  to  the  penalty  of  imprisonment,  but  also 
to  obloquy.  He  has  virtually  refused  to  take  up  arms  in 
defence  of  his  country  ;  he  has  sinned  against  patriotism. 
This  accusation  has  led  to  a  counter-accusation  directed 
against  the  very  idea  of  patriotism.  Here  the  writings  of 
Tolstoy,  with  their  poignant  and  searching  appeals  for 
the  cause  of  humanity  as  against  the  cause  of  patriotism, 
have  undoubtedly  served  the  anti-militarists  well,  and 
wherever  the  war  against  war  is  being  urged,  even  so  far 
as  Japan,  Tolstoy  has  furnished  some  of  its  keenest 
weapons.  Moreover,  in  so  far  as  anti-militarism  is  advo- 
cated by  the  workers,  they  claim  that  international 
interests  have  already  effaced  and  superseded  the  narrower 
interests  of  patriotism.  In  refusing  to  fight,  the  workers 
of  a  country  are  simply  declaring  their  loyalty  to  fellow- 
workers  on  the  other  side  of  the  frontier,  a  loyalty  which 
has  stronger  claims  on  them,  they  hold,  than  any  pat- 
riotism   which    simply    means    loyalty    to    capitalists ; 

Woman  and  Labour,  chap.  iv.  While  this  is  the  fundamental  fact, 
we  must  remember  that  we  cannot  generalize  about  the  ideas  or 
the  feelings  of  a  whole  sex,  and  that  the  biological  traditions  of 
women  have  been  associated  with  a  primitive  period  when  they  were 
the  delighted  spectators  of  combats.  "  Woman,"  thought  Nietzsche, 
"  is  essentially  unpeaceable,  like  the  cat,  however  well  she  may 
have  assumed  the  peaceable  demeanour."  Steinmetz  (Philosophie 
des  Krieges,  p.  314),  remarking  that  women  are  opposed  to  war  in 
the  abstract,  adds  :  "In  practice,  however,  it  happens  that  women 
regard  a  particular  war — and  all  wars  are  particular  wars — with  special 
favour  "  ;  he  remarks  that  the  majority  of  Englishwomen  fully  shared 
the  war  fever  against  the  Boers,  and  that,  on  the  other  side,  he  knew 
Dutch  ladies  in  Holland,  very  opposed  to  war,  who  would  yet  have 
danced  with  joy  at  that  time  on  the  news  of  a  declaration  of  war 
against  England. 


332        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

geographical  frontiers  are  giving  place  to  economic 
frontiers,  which  now  alone  serve  to  separate  enemies. 
And  if,  as  seems  probable,  when  the  next  attempt  is  made 
at  a  great  European  war,  the  order  for  mobilization  is 
immediately  followed  in  both  countries  by  the  declaration 
of  a  general  strike,  there  will  be  nothing  to  say  against 
such  a  declaration  even  from  the  standpoint  of  the 
narrowest  patriotism,  although  there  may  be  much  to  say 
on  other  grounds  against  the  policy  of  the  general  strike.1 
If  we  realize  what  is  going  on  around  us,  it  is  easy  to 
see  that  the  anti-militarist  movement  is  rapidly  reaching 
a  stage  when  it  will  be  easily  able,  even  unaided,  to 
paralyse  any  war  immediately  and  automatically.  The 
pioneers  in  the  movement  have  played  the  same  part  as 
was  played  in  the  seventeenth  century  by  the  Quakers. 
In  the  name  of  the  Bible  and  their  own  consciences,  the 
Quakers  refused  to  recognize  the  right  of  any  secular 
authority  to  compel  them  to  worship  or  to  fight ;    they 

1  The  general  strike,  which  has  been  especially  developed  by  the 
syndicalist  Labour  movement,  and  is  now  tending  to  spread  to  various 
countries,  is  a  highly  powerful  weapon,  so  powerful  that  its  results  are 
not  less  serious  than  those  of  war.  To  use  it  against  war  seems  to  be  to 
cast  out  Beelzebub  by  Beelzebub.  Even  in  Labour  disputes  the  modern 
strike  threatens  to  become  as  serious  and,  indeed,  almost  as  sanguinary 
as  the  civil  wars  of  ancient  times.  The  tendency  is,  therefore,  in 
progressive  countries,  as  we  see  in  Australia,  to  supersede  strikes  by 
conciliation  and  arbitration,  just  as  war  is  tending  to  be  superseded 
by  international  tribunals.  These  two  aims  are,  however,  absolutely 
distinct,  and  the  introduction  of  law  into  the  disputes  between  nations 
can  have  no  direct  effect  on  the  disputes  between  social  classes.  It  is 
quite  possible,  however,  that  it  may  have  an  indirect  effect,  and  that 
when  disputes  between  nations  are  settled  in  an  orderly  manner, 
social  feeling  will  forbid  disputes  between  classes  to  be  settled  in  a 
disorderly  manner. 


THE    WAR    AGAINST    WAR  333 

gained  what  they  struggled  for,  and  now  all  men  honour 
their  memories.  In  the  name  of  justice  and  human 
fraternity,  the  anti-militarists  are  to-day  taking  the  like 
course  and  suffering  the  like  penalties.  To-morrow,  they 
also  will  be  revered  as  heroes  and  martyrs. 

(6)  The  Over-growth  of  Armaments.    The  hostile  forces 
so  far  enumerated  have  converged  slowly  on  to  war  from 
such  various  directions  that  they  may  be  said  to  have 
surrounded  and  isolated  it ;  its  ultimate  surrender  can  only 
be  a  matter  of  time.    Of  late,  however,  a  new  factor  has 
appeared,  of  so  urgent  a  character  that  it  is  fast  rendering 
the  question  of  the  abolition  of  war  acute :  the  over-growth 
of  armaments.     This  is,  practically,  a  modern  factor  in 
the  situation,  and  while  it  is,  on  the  surface,  a  luxury  due 
to  the  large  surplus  of  wealth  in  great  modern  states,  it 
is  also,  if  we  look  a  little  deeper,  intimately  connected 
with  that  decay  of  the  warlike  spirit  due  to  selective 
breeding.     It  is  the  weak  and  timid  woman  who  looks 
nervously  under  the  bed  for  the  burglar  who  is  the  last 
person  she  really  desires  to  meet,  and  it  is  old,  rich,  and 
unwarlike  nations  which  take  the  lead  in  laboriously 
protecting  themselves  against  enemies  of  whom  there  is  no 
sign  in  any  quarter.     Within  the  last  half-century  only 
have  the  nations  of  the  world  begun  to  compete  with  each 
other  in  this  timorous  and  costly  rivalry.    In  the  warlike 
days  of  old,  armaments  in  time  of  peace  consisted  in  little 
more  than  solid  walls  for  defence,  a  supply  of  weapons 
stored  away  here  and  there,  sometimes  in  a  room  attached 
to  the  parish  church,  and  occasional  martial  exercises 
with  the  sword  or  the  bow,  which  were  little  more  than 


334        THE   TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

an  amusement.  The  true  fighting  man  trusted  to  his  own 
strong  right  arm  rather  than  to  armaments,  and  con- 
sidered that  he  was  himself  a  match  for  any  half-dozen 
of  the  enemy.  Even  in  actual  time  of  war  it  was  often 
difficult  to  find  either  zeal  or  money  to  supply  the  muni- 
tions of  war.  The  Diary  of  the  industrious  Pepys,  who 
achieved  so  much  for  the  English  navy,  shows  that  the 
care  of  the  country's  ships  mainly  depended  on  a  few 
unimportant  officials  who  had  the  greatest  trouble  in  the 
world  to  secure  attention  to  the  most  urgent  and  imme- 
diate needs. 

A  very  difficult  state  of  things  prevails  to-day.  The 
existence  of  a  party  having  for  its  watchword  the  cry  for 
retrenchment  and  economy  is  scarcely  possible  in  a 
modern  state.  All  the  leading  political  parties  in  every 
great  state — if  we  leave  aside  the  party  of  Labour — are 
equally  eager  to  pile  up  the  expenditure  on  armaments. 
It  is  the  boast  of  each  party,  not  that  it  spends  less,  but 
more,  than  its  rivals  on  this  source  of  expenditure,  now 
the  chief  in  every  large  state.  Moreover,  every  new  step 
in  expenditure  involves  a  still  further  step  ;  each  new 
improvement  in  attack  or  defence  must  immediately  be 
answered  by  corresponding  or  better  improvements  on 
the  part  of  rival  powers,  if  they  are  not  to  be  outclassed. 
Every  year  these  moves  and  counter-moves  necessarily 
become  more  extensive,  more  complex,  more  costly  ; 
while  each  counter-move  involves  the  obsolescence  of  the 
improvements  achieved  by  the  previous  move,  so  that  the 
waste  of  energy  and  money  keeps  pace  with  the  expendi- 
ture.    It  is  well  recognized  that  there  is  absolutely  no 


THE    WAR    AGAINST    WAR  335 

possible  limit  to  this  process  and  its  constantly  increasing 
acceleration. 

There  is  no  need  to  illustrate  this  point,  for  it  is  familiar 
to  all.  Any  newspaper  will  furnish  facts  and  figures 
vividly  exemplifying  some  aspect  of  the  matter.  For 
while  only  a  handful  of  persons  in  any  country  are  sin- 
cerely anxious  under  present  conditions  to  reduce  the 
colossal  sums  every  year  wasted  on  the  unproductive 
work  of  armament,  an  increasing  interest  in  the  matter 
testifies  to  a  vague  alarm  and  anxiety  concerning  the 
ultimate  issue.  For  it  is  felt  that  an  inevitable  crisis  lies 
at  the  end  of  the  path  down  which  the  nations  are  now 
moving. 

Thus,  from  this  point  of  view,  the  end  of  war  is  being 
attained  by  a  process  radically  opposite  to  that  by  which 
in  the  social  as  well  as  in  the  physical  organism  ancient 
structures  and  functions  are  outgrown.  The  usual 
process  is  a  gradual  recession  to  a  merely  vestigial  state. 
But  here  what  may  perhaps  be  the  same  ultimate  result 
is  being  reached  by  the  more  alarming  method  of  over- 
inflation  and  threatening  collapse.  It  is  an  alarming 
process  because  those  huge  and  heavily  armed  monsters 
of  primeval  days  who  furnish  the  zoological  types  corres- 
ponding to  our  modern  over-armed  states,  themselves  died 
out  from  the  world  when  their  unwieldy  armament  had 
reached  its  final  point  of  expansion.  Will  our  own  modern 
states,  one  wonders,  more  fortunately  succeed  in  escaping 
from  the  tough  hides  that  ever  more  closely  constrict 
them,  and  finally  save  their  souls  alive  ? 

(7)  The  Dominance  of  Social  Reform.    The  final  factor 


336        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

in  the  situation  is  the  growing  dominance  of  the  process 
of  social  reform.  On  the  one  hand,  the  increasing  com- 
plexity of  social  organisation  renders  necessary  a  cor- 
respondingly increasing  expenditure  of  money  in  diminish- 
ing its  friction  and  aiding  its  elaboration  ;  on  the  other 
hand,  the  still  more  rapidly  increasing  demands  of  arma- 
ment render  it  ever  more  difficult  to  devote  money  to  such 
social  purposes.  Everywhere  even  the  most  elementary 
provision  for  the  finer  breeding  and  higher  well-being  of 
a  country's  citizens  is  postponed  to  the  clamour  for  ever 
new  armaments.  The  situation  thus  created  is  rapidly 
becoming  intolerable. 

It  is  not  alone  the  future  of  civilization  which  is  for 
ever  menaced  by  the  possibility  of  war  ;  the  past  of 
civilization,  with  all  the  precious  embodiments  of  its 
traditions,  is  even  more  fatally  imperilled.  As  the  world 
grows  older  and  the  ages  recede,  the  richer,  the  more 
precious,  the  more  fragile,  become  the  ancient  heirlooms 
of  humanity.  They  constitute  the  final  symbols  of  human 
glory  ;  they  cannot  be  too  carefully  guarded,  too  highly 
valued.  But  all  the  other  dangers  that  threaten  their 
integrity  and  safety,  if  put  together,  do  not  equal  war. 
No  land  that  has  ever  been  a  cradle  of  civilization  but 
bears  witness  to  this  sad  truth.  All  the  sacred  citadels, 
the  glories  of  humanity, — Jerusalem  and  Athens,  Rome 
and  Constantinople, — have  been  ravaged  by  war,  and,  in 
every  case,  their  ruin  has  been  a  disaster  that  can  never 
be  repaired.  If  we  turn  to  the  minor  glories  of  more 
modern  ages,  the  special  treasure  of  England  has  been 
its  parish  churches,  a  treasure  of  unique  charm  in  the 


THE    WAR    AGAINST    WAR  337 

world  and  the  embodiment  of  the  people's  spirit :  to-day 
in  their  battered  and  irreparable  condition  they  are  the 
monuments  of  a  Civil  War  waged  all  over  the  country 
with  ruthless  religious  ferocity.  Spain,  again,  was  a  land 
which  had  stored  up,  during  long  centuries,  nearly  the 
whole  of  its  accumulated  possessions  in  every  art,  sacred 
and  secular,  of  fabulous  value,  within  the  walls  of  its 
great  fortress-like  cathedrals  ;  Napoleon's  soldiers  over- 
ran the  land,  and  brought  with  them  rapine  and  destruc- 
tion ;  so  that  in  many  a  shrine,  as  at  Montserrat,  we  still 
can  see  how  in  a  few  days  they  turned  a  Paradise  into  a 
desert.  It  is  not  only  the  West  that  has  suffered.  In 
China  the  rarest  and  loveliest  wares  and  fabrics  that  the 
hand  of  man  has  wrought  were  stored  in  the  Imperial 
Palace  of  Pekin  ;  the  savage  military  hordes  of  the  West 
broke  in  less  than  a  century  ago  and  recklessly  trampled 
down  and  fired  all  that  they  could  not  loot.  In  every  such 
case  the  loss  is  final ;  the  exquisite  incarnation  of  some 
stage  in  the  soul  of  man  that  is  for  ever  gone  is  perma- 
nently diminished,  deformed,  or  annihilated. 

At  the  present  time  all  civilized  countries  are  becoming 
keenly  aware  of  the  value  of  their  embodied  artistic 
possessions.  This  is  shown,  in  the  most  decisive  manner 
possible,  by  the  enormous  prices  placed  upon  them.  Their 
pecuniary  value  enables  even  the  stupidest  and  most 
unimaginative  to  realize  the  crime  that  is  committed 
when  they  are  ruthlessly  and  wantonly  destroyed.  Nor 
is  it  only  the  products  of  ancient  art  which  have  to-day 
become  so  peculiarly  valuable.  The  products  of  modern 
science  are  only  less  valuable.     So  highly  complex  and 


338        THE   TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

elaborate  is  the  mechanism  now  required  to  ensure 
progress  in  some  of  the  sciences  that  enormous  sums  of 
money,  the  most  delicate  skill,  long  periods  of  time,  are 
necessary  to  produce  it.  Galileo  could  replace  his  tele- 
scope with  but  little  trouble  ;  the  destruction  of  a  single 
modern  observatory  would  be  almost  a  calamity  to  the 
human  race. 

Such  considerations  as  these  are,  indeed,  at  last  recog- 
nized in  all  civilized  countries.  The  engines  of  destruction 
now  placed  at  the  service  of  war  are  vastly  more  potent 
than  any  used  in  the  wars  of  the  past.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  value  of  the  products  they  can  destroy  is  raised  in  a 
correspondingly  high  degree.  But  a  third  factor  is  now 
intervening.  And  if  the  museums  of  Paris  or  the 
laboratories  of  Berlin  were  threatened  by  a  hostile  army 
it  would  certainly  be  felt  that  an  international  power, 
if  it  existed,  should  be  empowered  to  intervene,  at 
whatever  cost  to  national  susceptibilities,  in  order  to 
keep  the  peace.  Civilization,  we  now  realize,  is  wrought 
out  of  inspirations  and  discoveries  which  are  for  ever 
passed  and  repassed  from  land  to  land  ;  it  cannot  be 
claimed  by  any  individual  land.  A  nation's  art-products 
and  its  scientific  activities  are  not  mere  national  property  ; 
they  are  international  possessions,  for  the  joy  and  service 
of  the  whole  world.  The  nations  hold  them  in  trust  for 
humanity.  The  international  force  which  will  inspire 
respect  for  that  truth  it  is  our  business  to  create. 

The  only  question  that  remains — and  it  is  a  question 
the  future  alone  will  solve— is  the  particular  point  at 
which  this  ancient  and  overgrown  stronghold  of  war,  now 


THE    WAR    AGAINST    WAR  339 

being  invested  so  vigorously  from  so  many  sides,  will 
finally  be  overthrown,  whether  from  within  or  from 
without,  whether  by  its  own  inherent  weakness,  by  the 
persuasive  reasonableness  of  developing  civilization,  by 
the  self-interest  of  the  commercial  and  financial  classes, 
or  by  the  ruthless  indignation  of  the  proletariat.  That  is  a 
problem  still  insoluble,  but  it  is  not  impossible  that  some 
already  living  may  witness  its  solution. 

Two  centuries  ago  the  Abbe  de  Saint-Pierre  set  forth 
his  scheme  for  a  federation  of  the  States  of  Europe, 
which  meant,  at  that  time,  a  federation  of  all  the  civilised 
states  of  the  world.  It  was  the  age  of  great  ideas,  scat- 
tered abroad  to  germinate  in  more  practical  ages  to  come. 
The  amiable  Abbe  enjoyed  all  the  credit  of  his  large  and 
philanthropic  conceptions.  But  no  one  dreamed  of 
realizing  them,  and  the  forces  which  alone  could  realize 
them  had  not  yet  appeared  above  the  horizon.1    In  this 

1  The  Abbe  de  Saint-Pierre  (1658-1743),  a  churchman  without 
vocation,  was  a  Norman  of  noble  family,  and  first  published  his  Mi- 
moires  pour  rendre  la  Paix  Perpetuelle  a  V Europe  in  1722.  As  Si6gler- 
Pascal  well  shows  (Les  Pro  jets  de  I' Abbe"  de  Saint-Pierre,  1900)  he  was 
not  a  mere  visionary  Utopian,  but  an  acute  and  far-seeing  thinker,  prac- 
tical in  his  methods,  a  close  observer,  an  experimentalist,  and  one  of 
the  first  to  attempt  the  employment  of  statistics.  He  was  secretary  to 
the  French  plenipotentiaries  who  negotiated  the  Treaty  of  Utrecht,  and 
was  thus  probably  put  on  the  track  of  his  scheme.  He  proposed  that 
the  various  European  states  should  name  plenipotentiaries  to  form  a 
permanent  tribunal  of  compulsory  arbitration  for  the  settlement  of 
all  differences.  If  any  state  took  up  arms  against  one  of  the  allies, 
the  whole  confederation  would  conjointly  enter  the  field,  at  their 
conjoint  expense,  against  the  offending  state.  He  was  opposed  to 
absolute  disarmament,  an  army  being  necessary  to  ensure  peace, 
but  it  must  be  a  joint  army  composed  of  contingents  from  each  Power 
in  the  confederation.  Saint-Pierre,  it  will  be  seen,  had  clearly  grasped 
the  essential  facts  of  the  situation  as  we  see  them  to-day.    "  The  author 


340        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

matter,  at  all  events,  the  world  has  progressed,  and  a 
federation  of  the  States  of  the  world  is  no  longer  the  mere 
conception  of  a  philosophic  dreamer.    The  first  step  will 
be  taken  when  two  of  the  leading  countries  of  the  world 
— and  it  would  be  most  reasonable  for  the  states  having 
the  closest  community  of  origin  and  language  to  take  the 
initiative — resolve  to  submit  all  their  differences  without 
reserve  to  arbitration.     As  soon  as  a  third  power  of 
magnitude  joined  this  federation  the  nucleus  would  be 
constituted  of  a  world  state.    Such  a  state  would  be  able 
to  impose  peace  on  even  the  most  recalcitrant  outside 
states,  for  it  would  furnish  that  "  visible  power  to  keep 
them   in   awe,"   which   Hobbes   rightly   declared  to  be 
indispensable  ;   it  could  even,  in  the  last  resort,  if  neces- 
sary, enforce  peace  by  war.     Thus  there  might  still  be 
war  in  the  world.    But  there  would  be  no  wars  that  were 
not  Holy  Wars.    There  are  other  methods  than  war  of  en- 
forcing peace,  and  these  such  a  federation  of  great  states 
would  be  easily  able  to  bring  to  bear  on  even  the  most 
warlike  of  states,  but  the  necessity  of  a  mighty  armed 
international  force  would  remain  for  a  long  time  to  come. 
To  suppose,  as  some  seem  to  suppose,  that  the  establish- 
ment of  arbitration  in  place  of  war  means  immediate 
disarmament  is  an  idle  dream.     At  Conferences  of  the 
English  Labour  Party  on  this  question,  the  most  active 

of  The  Project  of  Perpetual  Peace,"  concludes  Prof.  Pierre  Robert  in  a 
sympathetic  summary  of  his  career  (Petit  de  Julleville,  Histoire  de  la 
Langue  et  de  la  Litterature  Francaise,  Vol.  VI),  "is  the  precursor  of 
the  twentieth  century."  His  statue,  we  cannot  doubt,  will  be  a  con- 
spicuous object,  beside  Sully's,  on  the  future  Palace  of  any  international 
tribunal. 


THE    WAR    AGAINST    WAR  341 

opposition  to  the  proposed  strike  method  for  rendering 
war  impossible  comes  from  the  delegates  representing  the 
workers  in  arsenals  and  dockyards.  But  there  is  no 
likelihood  of  arsenals  and  dockyards  closing  in  the  life- 
time of  the  present  workers,  and  though  the  establishment 
of  peaceful  methods  of  settling  international  disputes 
cannot  fail  to  diminish  the  number  of  the  workers  who 
live  by  armament,  it  will  be  long  before  they  can  be 
dispensed  with  altogether. 

It  is,  indeed,  so  common  to  regard  the  person  who  points 
out  the  inevitable  bankruptcy  of  war  under  highly 
civilized  conditions  as  a  mere  Utopian  dreamer,  that  it 
becomes  necessary  to  repeat,  with  all  the  emphasis 
necessary,  that  the  settlement  of  international  disputes 
by  law  cannot  be  achieved  by  disarmament,  or  by  any 
method  not  involving  force.  All  law,  even  the  law  that 
settles  the  disputes  of  individuals,  has  force  behind  it 
and  the  law  that  is  to  settle  the  disputes  between  nations 
cannot  possibly  be  effective  unless  it  has  behind  it  a 
mighty  force.  I  have  assumed  this  from  the  outset  in 
quoting  the  dictum  of  Hobbes,  but  the  point  seems  to  be 
so  easily  overlooked  by  the  loose  thinker  that  it  is 
necessary  to  reiterate  it.  The  necessity  of  force  behind 
the  law  ordering  international  relations  has,  indeed,  never 
been  disputed  by  any  sagacious  person  who  has  occupied 
himself  with  the  matter.  Even  William  Penn,  who, 
though  a  Quaker,  was  a  practical  man  of  affairs,  when  in 
1693  he  put  forward  his  Essay  Towards  the  Present  and 
Future  Peace  of  Europe  by  the  Establishment  of  a  European 
Diet,  Parliament  or  Estate,  proposed  that  if  any  imperial 


342        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

state  refused  to  submit  its  pretensions  to  the  sovereign 
assembly  and  to  abide  by  its  decisions,  or  took  up  arms 
on  its  own  behalf,  "  all  the  other  sovereignties,  united  as 
one  strength,  shall  compel  the  submission  and  per- 
formance of  the  sentence,  with  damages  to  the  suffering 
party,  and  charges  to  the  sovereignties  that  obliged  their 
submission."  In  repudiating  some  injudicious  and 
hazardous  pacificist  considerations  put  forth  by  Novikov, 
the  distinguished  French  philosopher,  Jules  de  Gaultier, 
points  out  that  law  has  no  rights  against  war  save  in 
force,  on  which  war  itself  bases  its  rights.  "  Force  in 
abstracto  creates  right.  It  is  quite  unimaginable  that  a 
right  should  exist  which  has  not  been  affirmed  at  some 
moment  as  a  reality,  that  is  to  say  a  force.  .  .  .  What  we 
glorify  under  the  name  of  right  is  only  a  more  intense  and 
habitual  state  of  force  which  we  oppose  to  a  less  frequent 
form  of  force."1  The  old  Quaker  and  the  modern  philoso- 
pher are  thus  at  one  with  the  practical  man  in  rejecting 
any  form  of  pacification  which  rests  on  a  mere  appeal  to 
reason  and  justice. 

1  Jules  de  Gaultier,  "  Comment  Naissent  les  Dogmes,"  Mercure 
de  France,  ist  Sept.,  191 1.  Jules  de  Gaultier  also  observes  that  "  con- 
flict is  the  law  and  condition  of  all  existence."  That  may  be  admitted, 
but  it  ceases  to  be  true  if  we  assume,  as  the  same  thinker  assumes, 
that  "  conflict  "  necessarily  involves  "  war."  The  establishment  of 
law  to  regulate  the  disputes  between  individuals  by  no  means  sup- 
presses conflict,  but  it  suppresses  fighting,  and  it  ensures  that  if  any 
righting  occur  the  aggressor  shall  not  profit  by  his  aggression.  In  the 
same  way  the  existence  of  a  tribunal  to  regulate  the  disputes  between 
national  communities  of  individuals  can  by  no  means  suppress  con- 
flict ;  but  unless  it  suppresses  fighting,  and  unless  it  ensures  that  if 
fighting  occurs  the  aggressor  shall  not  profit  by  his  aggression,  it  will 
have  effected  nothing. 


THE    WAR   AGAINST    WAR  343 

It  cannot  be  said  that  the  progress  of  civilization  has 
so  far  had  any  tendency  to  render  unnecessary  the  point  of 
view  adopted  by  Penn  and  Jules  de  Gaultier.    The  acts 
of  states  to-day  are  apt  to  be  just  as  wantonly  aggressive 
as  they  ever  were,  as  reckless  of  reason  and  of  justice. 
There  is  no  country,  however  high  it  may  stand  in  the 
comity  of  nations,  which  is  not  sometimes  carried  away 
by  the  blind  fever  of  war.     France,  the  land  of  reason, 
echoed,  only  forty  years  ago,  with  the  mad  cry,  "  A 
Berlin  !  "    England,  the  friend  of  the  small  nationalities, 
jubilantly,  with  even  an  air  of  heroism,  crushed  under  foot 
the  little  South  African  Republics,  and  hounded  down 
every  Englishman  who  withstood  the  madness  of  the 
crowd.    The  great,  free  intelligent  people  of  the  United 
States  went  to  war  against  Spain  with  a  childlike  faith  in 
the  preposterous  legend  of  the  blowing  up  of  the  Maine. 
There  is  no  country  which  has  not  some  such  shameful 
page  in  its  history,  the  record  of  some  moment  when  its 
moral  and  intellectual  prestige  was  besmirched  in  the 
eyes  of  the  whole  world.    It  pays  for  its  momentary  mad- 
ness, it  may  valiantly  strive  to  atone  for  its  injustice,  but 
the  damaging  record  remains.    The  supersession  of  war 
is  needed  not  merely  in  the  interests  of  the  victims  of 
aggression ;  it  is  needed  fully  as  much  in  the  interests  of 
the  aggressors,  driven  by  their  own  momentary  passions, 
or  by  the  ambitious  follies  of  their  rulers,  towards  crimes 
for  which  a  terrible  penalty  is  exacted.     There  has  never 
been  any  country  at  every  moment  so  virtuous  and  so  wise 
that  it  has  not  sometimes  needed  to  be  saved  from  itself. 
For  every  country  has  sometimes  gone  mad,  while  every 


344        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

other  country  has  looked  on  its  madness  with  the  mocking 
calm  of  clear-sighted  intelligence,  and  perhaps  with  a 
Pharisaical  air  of  virtuous  indignation. 

During  the  single  year  of  191 1  the  process  was  unrolled 
in  its  most  complete  form.  The  first  bad  move — though 
it  was  a  relatively  small  and  inoffensive  move — was  made 
by  France.  The  Powers,  after  much  deliberation,  had 
come  to  certain  conclusions  concerning  Morocco,  and 
while  giving  France  a  predominant  influence  in  that 
country,  had  carefully  limited  her  power  of  action.  But 
France,  anxious  to  increase  her  hold  on  the  land,  sent  out, 
with  the  usual  pretexts,  an  unnecessary  expedition  to  Fez. 
Had  an  international  tribunal  with  an  adequate  force 
behind  it  been  in  existence,  France  would  have  been 
called  upon  to  justify  her  action,  and  whether  she  suc- 
ceeded or  failed  in  such  justification,  no  further  evils 
would  have  occurred.  But  there  was  no  force  able  or 
willing  to  call  France  to  account,  and  the  other  Powers 
found  it  a  simpler  plan  to  follow  her  example  than  to 
check  it.  In  pursuance  of  this  policy,  Germany  sent  a 
warship  to  the  Moroccan  port  of  Agadir,  using  the  same 
pretext  as  the  French,  with  even  less  justification.  When 
the  supreme  military  power  of  the  world  wags  even  a 
finger  the  whole  world  is  thrown  into  a  state  of  consterna- 
tion. That  happened  on  the  present  occasion,  though, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  giants  are  not  given  to  reckless  vio- 
lence, and  Germany,  far  from  intending  to  break  the 
world's  peace,  merely  used  her  power  to  take  advantage 
of  France's  bad  move.  She  agreed  to  condone  France's 
mistake,  and  to  resign  to  her  the  Moroccan  rights  to  which 


THE    WAR    AGAINST    WAR  345 

neither  country  had  the  slightest  legitimate  claim,   in 
return  for  an  enormous  tract  of  land  in  another  part  of 
Africa.     Now,  so  far,  the  game  had  been  played  in  ac- 
cordance with  rules  which,  though  by  no  means  those  of 
abstract    justice,    were    fairly   in   accordance   with    the 
recognized  practices  of  nations.    But  now  another  Power 
was  moved  to  far  more  openly  unscrupulous  action.     It 
has  long  been  recognized  that  if  there  must  be  a  partition 
of  North  Africa,  Italy's  share  is  certainly  Tripoli.    The 
action  of  France  and  of  Germany  stirred  up  in  Italy  the 
feeling  that  now  or  never  was  the  moment  for  action,  and 
with  brutal  recklessness,  and  the  usual  pretexts,  now 
flimsier  than  ever,  Italy  made  war  on  Turkey,  without 
offer  of  mediation,  in  flagrant  violation  of  her  own  under- 
takings at  the  Hague  Peace  Convention  of  1899.    There 
was  now  only  one  Mohammedan  country  left  to  attack, 
and    it    was     Russia's    turn     to     make     the    attack. 
Northern   Persia — the   most   civilized  and  fruitful   half 
of   Persia — had   been   placed   under   the   protection   of 
Russia,  and  Russia,  after  cynically  doing  her  best  to 
make  good  government  in  Persia  impossible,  seized  on 
the  pretext  of  the  bad  government  to  invade  the  country. 
If  the  Powers  of  Europe  had  wished  to  demonstrate  the 
necessity    for    a    great    international    tribunal,    with    a 
mighty  force  behind  it  to  ensure  the  observance  of  its 
decisions,  they  could  not  have  devised  a  more  effective 
demonstration. 

Thus  it  is  that  there  can  be  no  question  of  disarmament 
at  present,  and  that  there  can  be  no  effective  international 
tribunal  unless  it  has  behind  it  an  effective  army.     A 


346        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

great  army  must  continue  to  exist  apart  altogether  from 
the  question  as  to  whether  the  army  in  itself  is  a  school 
of  virtue  or  of  vice.  Both  these  views  of  its  influence  have 
been  held  in  extreme  forms,  and  both  seem  to  be  without 
any  great  justification.  On  this  point  we  may  perhaps 
accept  the  conclusion  of  Professor  Guerard,  who  can  view 
the  matter  from  a  fairly  impartial  standpoint,  having 
served  in  the  French  army,  closely  studied  the  life  of  the 
people  ifi  London,  and  occupied  a  professorial  chair  in 
California.  He  denies  that  an  army  is  a  school  of  all  the 
vices,  but  he  is  also  unable  to  see  that  it  exercises  an 
elevating  influence  on  any  but  the  lowest  :  "A  regiment 
is  not  much  worse  than  a  big  factory.  Factory  life  in 
Europe  is  bad  enough  ;  military  service  extends  its  evils 
to  agricultural  labourers,  and  also  to  men  who  would 
otherwise  have  escaped  these  lowering  influences.  As  for 
traces  of  moral  uplift  in  the  army,  I  have  totally  failed 
to  notice  any.  War  may  be  a  stern  school  of  virtue  ; 
barrack  life  is  not.  Honour,  duty,  patriotism,  are  feelings 
instilled  at  school ;  they  do  not  develop,  but  often  de- 
teriorate, during  the  term  of  compulsory  service."1 

But,  as  we  have  seen,  and  as  Guerard  admits,  it  is 
probable  that  wars  will  be  abolished  generations  before 
armies  are  suppressed.  The  question  arises  what  we  are 
to  do  with  our  armies.  There  seem  to  be  at  least  two 
ways  in  which  armies  may  be  utilized,  as  we  may  already 
see  in  France,  and  perhaps  to  some  slight  extent  in 
England.     In  the  first  place,  the  army  may  be  made  a 

1  A.  L.  Guerard,  "  Impressions  of  Military  Life  in  France,"  Popular 
Science  Monthly,  April,  ign. 


THE    WAR    AGAINST    WAR  347 

great  educational  agency,  an  academy  of  arts  and  sciences, 
a  school  of  citizenship.  In  the  second  place,  armies  are 
tending  to  become,  as  William  James  pointed  out,  the 
reserve  force  of  peace,  great  organized  unemployed  bodies 
of  men  which  can  be  brought  into  use  during  sudden 
emergencies  and  national  disasters.  Thus  the  French 
army  performed  admirable  service  during  the  great  Seine 
floods  a  few  years  ago,  and  both  in  France  and  in  England 
the  army  has  been  called  upon  to  help  to  carry  on  public 
duties  indispensable  to  the  welfare  of  the  nation  during 
great  strikes,  though  here  it  would  be  unfortunate  if  the 
army  came  to  be  regarded  as  a  mere  strike-breaking 
corps.  Along  these  main  lines,  however,  there  are,  as 
Guerard  has  pointed  out,  signs  of  a  transformation  which, 
while  preserving  armies  for  international  use,  yet  point  to 
a  compromise  between  the  army  and  modern  democracy- 
It  is  feared  by  some  that  the  reign  of  universal  peace 
will  deprive  them  of  the  opportunity  of  exhibiting  daring 
and  heroism.  Without  inquiring  too  carefully  what  use 
has  been  made  of  their  present  opportunities  by  those 
who  express  this  fear,  it  must  be  said  that  such  a  fear  is 
altogether  groundless.  There  are  an  infinite  number  of 
positions  in  life  in  which  courage  is  needed,  as  much  as  on 
a  battlefield,  though,  for  the  most  part,  with  less  risk  of 
that  total  annihilation  which  in  the  past  has  done  so 
much  to  breed  out  the  courageous  stocks.  Moreover, 
the  certain  establishment  of  peace  will  immensely  enlarge 
the  scope  for  daring  and  adventure  in  the  social  sphere. 
There  are  departments  in  the  higher  breeding  and  social 
evolution   of   the   race — some    perhaps   even   involving 


348        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

questions  of  life  and  death — where  the  highest  courage  is 
needed.  It  would  be  premature  to  discuss  them,  for  they 
can  scarcely  enter  the  field  of  practical  politics  until  war 
has  been  abolished.  But  those  persons  who  are  burning 
to  display  heroism  may  rest  assured  that  the  course  of 
social  evolution  will  offer  them  every  opportunity. 


XI 

THE    PROBLEM    OF    AN    INTERNATIONAL 

LANGUAGE 

Early  Attempts  to  Construct  an  International  Language — The  Urgent 
Need  of  an  Auxiliary  Language  To-day — Volapiik — The  Claims  of 
Spanish — Latin — The  Claims  of  English — Its  Disadvantages — The 
Claims  of  French — Its  Disadvantages — The  Modern  Growth  of 
National  Feeling  opposed  to  Selection  of  a  Natural  Language — 
Advantages  of  an  Artificial  Language — Demands  it  must  fulfil — 
Esperanto — Its  Threatened  Disruption — The  International  Associa- 
tion for  the  adoption  of  an  Auxiliary  International  Language — 
The  First  Step  to  Take. 

EVER  since  the  decay  of  Latin  as  the  universal 
language  of  educated  people,  there  have  been 
attempts  to  replace  it  by  some  other  medium 
of  international  communication.  That  decay  was  in- 
evitable ;  it  was  the  outward  manifestation  of  a  move- 
ment of  individualism  which  developed  national  languages 
and  national  literatures,  and  burst  through  the  restraining 
envelope  of  an  authoritarian  system  expounded  in  an 
official  language.  This  individualism  has  had  the  freest 
play,  and  we  are  not  likely  to  lose  all  that  it  has  given  us. 
Yet  as  soon  as  it  was  achieved  the  more  distinguished 
spirits  in  every  country  began  to  feel  the  need  of  counter- 
balancing it.  The  history  of  the  movement  may  be  said 
to  begin  with  Descartes,  who  in  1629  wrote  to  his  friend 
Mersenne  that  it  would  be  possible  to  construct  an  arti- 

249 


350        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

ficial  language  which  could  be  used  as  an  international 
medium  of  communication.  Leibnitz,  though  he  had 
solved  the  question  for  himself,  writing  some  of  his  works 
in  Latin  and  others  in  French,  was  yet  all  his  life  more  or 
less  occupied  with  the  question  of  a  universal  language. 
Other  men  of  the  highest  distinction — Pascal,  Condillac, 
Voltaire,  Diderot,  Ampere,  Jacob  Grimm — have  sought 
or  desired  a  solution  to  this  problem.1  None  of  these 
great  men,  however,  succeeded  even  in  beginning  an 
attempt  to  solve  the  problem  they  were  concerned 
with. 

Some  forty  years  ago,  however,  the  difficulty  began 
again  to  be  felt,  this  time  much  more  keenly  and  more 
widely  than  before.  The  spread  of  commerce,  the 
facility  of  travel,  the  ramifications  of  the  postal  service, 
the  development  of  new  nationalities  and  new  literatures, 
have  laid  upon  civilized  peoples  a  sense  of  burden  and 
restriction  which  could  never  have  been  felt  by  their 
forefathers  in  the  previous  century.  Added  to  this,  a 
new  sense  of  solidarity  had  been  growing  up  in  the  world  '> 
the  financial  and  commercial  solidarity,  by  which  any 
disaster  or  disturbance  in  one  country  causes  a  wave  of 
disaster  or  disturbance  to  pass  over  the  whole  civilized 
globe,  was  being  supplemented  by  a  sense  of  spiritual 
solidarity.  Men  began  to  realize  that  the  tasks  of  civiliza- 
tion cannot  be  carried  out  except  by  mutual  understand- 
ing and  mutual  sympathy  among  the  more  civilized 
nations,  that  every  nation  has  something  to  learn  from 

1  The  history  of  the  efforts  to  attain  a  universal  language  has  been 
written  by  Couturat  and  Leau,  Histoire  de  la  Langue  Universelle,  1903. 


AN    INTERNATIONAL    LANGUAGE         351 

other  nations,  and  that  the  bonds  of  international  inter- 
course must  thus  be  drawn  closer.  This  feeling  of  the 
need  of  an  international  language  led  in  America  to 
several  serious  attempts  to  obtain  a  consensus  of  opinion 
among  scientific  men  regarding  an  international  language. 
Thus  in  1888  the  Philosophical  Society  of  Philadelphia, 
the  oldest  of  American  learned  societies,  unanimously 
resolved,  on  the  initiative  of  Brinton,  to  address  a  letter 
to  learned  societies  throughout  the  world,  asking  for 
their  co-operation  in  perfecting  a  language  for  commercial 
and  learned  purposes,  based  on  the  Aryan  vocabulary  and 
grammar  in  their  simplest  forms,  and  to  that  end  pro- 
posing an  international  congress,  the  first  meeting  of 
which  should  be  held  in  Paris  or  London.  In  the  same 
year  Horatio  Hale  read  a  paper  on  the  same  subject 
before  the  American  Association  for  the  Advancement  of 
Science.  A  little  later,  in  1890,  it  was  again  proposed  at 
a  meeting  of  the  same  Association  that,  in  order  to  con- 
sider the  question  of  the  construction  and  adoption  of  a 
symmetrical  and  scientific  language,  a  congress  should 
be  held,  delegates  being  in  proportion  to  the  number 
of  persons  speaking  each  language. 

These  excellent  proposals  seem,  however,  to  have  borne 
little  fruit.  It  is  always  an  exceedingly  difficult  matter  to 
produce  combined  action  among  scientific  societies  even 
of  the  same  nation.  Thus  the  way  has  been  left  open  for 
individuals  to  adopt  the  easier  but  far  less  decisive  or 
satisfactory  method  of  inventing  a  new  language  by  their 
own  unaided  exertions.  Certainly  over  a  hundred  such 
languages  have  been  proposed  during  the  past  century. 


352        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

The  most  famous  of  these  was  undoubtedly  Volapuk, 
which  was  invented  in  1880  by  Schleyer,  a  German-Swiss 
priest  who  knew  many  languages  and  had  long  pondered 
over  this  problem,  but  who  was  not  a  scientific  philolo- 
gist ;  the  actual  inception  of  the  language  occurred  in  a 
dream.  Volapuk  was  almost  the  first  real  attempt  at  an 
organic  language  capable  of  being  used  for  the  oral  trans- 
mission of  thought.  On  this  account,  no  doubt,  it  met 
with  great  and  widespread  success  ;  it  was  actively  taken 
up  by  a  professor  at  Paris,  societies  were  formed  for  its 
propagation,  journals  and  hundreds  of  books  were 
published  in  it  ;  its  adherents  were  estimated  at  a  million. 
But  its  success,  though  brilliant,  was  short-lived.  In 
1889,  when  the  third  Volapuk  Congress  was  held,  it  was 
at  the  height  of  its  success,  but  thereafter  dissension 
arose,  and  its  reputation  suddenly  collapsed.  No  one 
now  speaks  Volapuk  ;  it  is  regarded  as  a  hideous  mon- 
strosity, even  by  those  who  have  the  most  lively  faith  in 
artificial  languages.  Its  inventor  has  outlived  his  lan- 
guage, and,  like  it,  has  been  forgotten  by  the  world, 
though  his  achievement  was  a  real  step  towards  the 
solution  of  the  problem. 

The  collapse  of  Volapuk  discouraged  thoughtful  persons 
from  expecting  any  solution  of  the  problem  in  an  artificial 
language.  It  seemed  extremely  improbable  that  any 
invented  language,  least  of  all  the  unaided  product  of  a 
single  mind,  could  ever  be  generally  accepted,  or  be 
worthy  of  general  acceptance,  as  an  international  mode 
of  communication.  Such  a  language  failed  to  carry  the 
prestige    necessary    to    overcome    the    immense    inertia 


AN    INTERNATIONAL    LANGUAGE         353 

which  any  attempt  to  adopt  it  would  meet  with.  In- 
vented languages,  the  visionary  schemes  of  idealists, 
apparently  received  no  support  from  practical  men  of 
affairs.  It  seemed  to  be  among  actual  languages,  living 
or  dead,  that  we  might  most  reasonably  expect  to  find 
a  medium  of  communication  likely  to  receive  wide  support. 
The  difficulty  then  lay  in  deciding  which  language  should 
be  selected. 

Russian  had  sometimes  been  advocated  as  the  universal 
language  for  international  purposes,  and  it  is  possible  to 
point  to  the  enormous  territory  of  Russia,  its  growing 
power  and  the  fact  that  Russian  is  the  real  or  official 
language  of  a  larger  number  of  people  than  any  other 
language  except  English.  But  Russian  is  so  unlike  the 
Latin  and  Teutonic  tongues,  used  by  the  majority  of 
European  peoples  ;  it  is  so  complicated,  so  difficult  to 
acquire,  and,  moreover,  so  lacking  in  concision  that  it  has 
never  had  many  enthusiastic  advocates. 

The  virtues  and  defects  of  Spanish,  which  has  found 
many  enthusiastic  supporters,  are  of  an  opposite  char- 
acter. It  is  an  admirably  vigorous  and  euphonious 
language,  on  a  sound  phonetic  basis,  every  letter  always 
standing  for  a  definite  sound  ;  the  grammar  is  simple 
and  exceptionally  free  from  irregularities,  and  it  is  the 
key  to  a  great  literature.  Billroth,  the  distinguished 
Austrian  surgeon,  advocated  the  adoption  of  Spanish  ; 
he  regarded  English  as  really  more  suitable,  but,  he 
pointed  out,  it  is  so  difficult  for  the  Latin  races  to  speak 
non-Latin  tongues  that  a  Romance  language  is  essential, 
and  Spanish  is  the  simplest  and  most  logical  of  the 
2  A 


354        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

Romance  tongues.1  It  is,  moreover,  spoken  by  a  vast 
number  of  people  in  South  America  and  elsewhere. 

A  few  enthusiasts  have  advocated  Greek,  and  have 
supported  their  claim  with  the  argument  that  it  is  still  a 
living  language.  But  although  Greek  is  the  key  to  a  small 
but  precious  literature,  and  is  one  of  the  sources  of  latter- 
day  speech  and  scientific  terminology,  it  is  difficult,  it  is 
without  special  adaptation  to  modern  uses,  and  there  are 
no  adequate  reasons  why  it  should  be  made  an  inter- 
national language. 

Latin  cannot  be  dismissed  quite  so  hastily.  It  has  in 
its  favour  the  powerful  argument  that  it  has  once  already 
been  found  adequate  to  serve  as  the  universal  language. 
There  is  a  widespread  opinion  to-day  among  the  medi- 
cal profession — the  profession  most  actively  interested 
in  the  establishment  of  a  universal  language — that  Latin 
should  be  adopted,  and  before  the  International  Medical 
Congress  at  Rome  in  1894,  a  petition  to  this  effect  was 
presented  by  some  eight  hundred  doctors  in  India.2  It  is 
undoubtedly  an  admirable  language,  expressive,  con- 
centrated, precise.    But  the  objections  are  serious.    The 

1  The  distinguished  French  physician,  Dr.  Sollier,  also,  in  an  address 
to  the  Lisbon  International  Medical  Congress,  on  "  La  Question  de  la 
Langue  Auxiliaire  Internationale,"  in  1906,  advocating  the  adoption  of 
one  of  the  existing  Romance  tongues,  said :  "  Spanish  is  the  simplest 
of  all  and  the  easiest,  and  if  it  were  chosen  for  this  purpose  I  should 
be  the  first  to  accept  it." 

2  It  has  even  been  stated  by  a  distinguished  English  man  of  science 
that  Latin  is  sometimes  easier  for  the  English  to  use  than  is  their  own 
language.  "  I  have  known  Englishmen  who  could  be  trusted  to  write 
a  more  intelligible  treatise,  possibly  even  to  make  a  more  lucid  speech, 
in  Latin  than  in  English,"  says  Dr.  Miers,  the  Principal  of  London 
University  (Lancet,  7th  October,  191 1),  and  be  adds:  "  Quite  seriously, 


AN  INTERNATIONAL  LANGUAGE    355 

relative  importance  of  Latin  to-day  is  very  far  from  what 
it  was  a  thousand  years  ago,  for  conditions  have  wholly 
changed.  There  is  now  no  great  influence,  such  as  the 
Catholic  Church  was  of  old,  to  enforce  Latin,  even  if  it 
possessed  greater  advantages.  And  the  advantages  are 
very  mixed.  Latin  is  a  wholly  dead  tongue,  and  except  in 
a  degenerate  form  not  by  any  means  an  easy  one  to  learn, 
for  its  genius  is  wholly  opposed  to  the  genius  even  of 
those  modern  languages  which  are  most  closely  allied  to 
it.  The  world  never  returns  on  its  own  path.  Although 
the  prestige  of  Latin  is  still  enormous,  a  language  could 
only  be  brought  from  death  to  life  by  some  widespread 
motor  force  ;   such  a  force  no  longer  exists  behind  Latin. 

There  remain  English  and  French,  and  these  are  un- 
doubtedly the  two  natural  languages  most  often  put 
forward — even  outside  England  and  France — as  possess- 
ing the  best  claims  for  adoption  as  auxiliary  international 
mediums  of  communication. 

English,  especially,  was  claimed  by  many,  some 
twenty  years  ago,  to  be  not  merely  the  auxiliary  language 
of  the  future,  but  the  universal  language  which  must 
spread  all  over  the  world  and  supersede  and  drive  out  all 
others  by  a  kind  of  survival  of  the  fittest.  This  notion 
of  a  universal  language  is  now  everywhere  regarded  as  a 
delusion,  but  at  that  time  there  was  etill  thought  by 
many  to  be  a  kind  of  special  procreative  activity  in  the 
communities  of  Anglo-Saxon  origin  which  would  naturally 

I  think  some  part  of  the  cause  is  to  be  sought  in  the  difficulty  of  our 
language,  and  many  educated  persons  get  lost  in  its  intricacies,  just 
as  they  get  lost  in  its  spelling."  Without  questioning  the  fact,  however, 
I  would  venture  to  question  this  explanation  of  it. 


356        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

tend  to  replace  all  other  peoples,  both  the  people  and  the 
language  being  regarded  as  the  fittest  to  survive.1  English 
was,  however,  rightly  felt  to  be  a  language  with  very 
great  force  behind  it,  being  spoken  by  vast  communities 
possessing  a  peculiarly  energetic  and  progressive  tempera- 
ment, and  with  much  power  of  peaceful  penetration  in 
other  lands.  It  is  generally  acknowledged  also  that 
English  fully  deserves  to  be  ranked  as  one  of  the  first  of 
languages  by  its  fine  aptitude  for  powerful  expression, 
while  at  the  same  time  it  is  equally  fitted  for  routine 
commercial  purposes.  The  wide  extension  of  English 
and  its  fine  qualities  have  often  been  emphasized,  and  it 
is  unnecessary  to  dwell  on  them  here.  The  decision  of 
the  scientific  societies  of  the  world  to  use  English  for 
bibliographical  purposes  is  not  entirely  a  tribute  to 
English  energy  in  organization,  but  to  the  quality  of  the 
language.  One  finds,  indeed,  that  these  facts  are  widely 
recognized  abroad,  in  France  and  elsewhere,  though  I  have 
noted  that  those  who  foretell  the  conquest  of  English, 
even  when  they  are  men  of  intellectual  distinction  and 
able  to  read  English,  are  often  quite  unable  to  speak  it  or 
to  understand  it  when  spoken. 

That  brings  us  to  a  point  which  is  overlooked  by  those 
who  triumphantly  pointed  to  the  natural  settlement  of 
this  question  by  the  swamping  of  other  tongues  in  the 

1  Thus  in  one  article  on  the  growing  extension  of  the  English  language 
throughout  the  world  (Macmillan's  Magazine,  March,  1892)  we  read: 
"  English  is  practically  certain  to  become  the  language  of  the  world. 

.  .  The  speech  of  Shakespeare  and  Milton,  of  Dryden  and  Swift, 
of  Byron  and  Wordsworth,  will  be,  in  a  sense  in  which  no  other  language 
has  been,  the  speech  of  the  whole  world."  We  do  not  nowadays  meet 
with  these  wild  statements. 


AN    INTERNATIONAL    LANGUAGE         357 

overflowing  tide  of  English  speech.  English  is  the  most 
concise  and  laconic  of  the  great  languages.  Greek,  French, 
and  German  are  all  more  expansive,  more  syllabically 
copious.  Latin  alone  may  be  said  to  equal  or  surpass 
English  in  concentration,  because,  although  Latin  words 
are  longer  on  the  average,  by  their  greater  inflection  they 
cover  a  larger  number  of  English  words.  This  power  of 
English  to  attain  expression  with  a  minimum  expenditure 
of  energy  in  written  speech  is  one  of  its  chief  claims  to 
succeed  Latin  as  the  auxiliary  international  language. 
But  it  furnishes  no  claim  to  preference  for  actual  speak- 
ing, in  which  this  economy  of  energy  ceases  to  be  a 
supreme  virtue,  since  here  we  have  also  to  admit  the 
virtues  of  easy  intelligibility  and  of  persuasiveness. 
Greek  largely  owed  its  admirable  fitness  for  speech  to  the 
natural  richness  and  prolongation  of  its  euphonious 
words,  which  allowed  the  speaker  to  attain  the  legitimate 
utterance  of  his  thought  without  pauses  or  superfluous 
repetition.  French,  again,  while  by  no  means  inapt  for 
concentration,  as  the  pensee  writers  show,  most  easily 
lends  itself  to  effects  that  are  meant  for  speech,  as  in 
Bossuet,  or  that  recall  speech,  as  in  Mme  de  Sevigne  in 
one  order  of  literature,  or  Renan  in  another.  But  at 
Rome,  we  feel,  the  spoken  tongue  had  a  difficulty  to 
overcome,  and  the  mellifluously  prolonged  rhetoric  of 
Cicero,  delightful  as  it  may  be,  scarcely  seems  to  reveal 
to  us  the  genius  of  the  Latin  tongue.  The  inaptitude  of 
English  for  the  purposes  of  speech  is  even  more  con- 
spicuous, and  is  again  well  illustrated  in  our  oratory. 
Gladstone   was   an   orator   of   acknowledged   eloquence, 


358        THE   TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

but  the  extreme  looseness  and  redundancy  into  which 
his  language  was  apt  to  fall  in  the  effort  to  attain  the 
verbose  richness  required  for  the  ends  of  spoken  speech, 
reveals  too  clearly  the  poverty  of  English  from  this  point 
of  view.  The  same  tendency  is  also  illustrated  by  the 
vain  re-iterations  of  ordinary  speakers.  The  English 
intellect,  with  all  its  fine  qualities,  is  not  sufficiently 
nimble  for  either  speaker  or  hearer  to  keep  up  with  the 
swift  brevity  of  the  English  tongue.  It  is  a  curious  fact 
that  Great  Britain  takes  the  lead  in  Europe  in  the  pre- 
valence of  stuttering  ;  the  language  is  probably  a  factor 
in  this  evil  pre-eminence,  for  it  appears  that  the  Chinese, 
whose  language  is  powerfully  rhythmic,  never  stutter. 
One  authority  has  declared  that  "  no  nation  in  the 
civilized  world  speaks  its  language  so  abominably  as  the 
English."  We  can  scarcely  admit  that  this  English 
difficulty  of  speech  is  the  result  of  some  organic  defect 
in  English  nervous  systems  ;  the  language  itself  must  be  a 
factor  in  the  matter.  I  have  found,  when  discussing  the 
point  with  scientific  men  and  others  abroad,  that  the 
opinion  prevails  that  it  is  usually  difficult  to  follow  a 
speaker  in  English.  This  experience  may,  indeed,  be 
considered  general.  While  an  admirably  strong  and  con- 
cise language,  English  is  by  no  means  so  adequate  in 
actual  speech  ;  it  is  not  one  of  the  languages  which  can  be 
heard  at  a  long  distance,  and,  moreover,  it  lends  itself 
in  speaking  to  so  many  contractions  that  are  not  used  in 
writing — so  many  "  can'ts  "  and  "  won'ts  "  and  "  don'ts," 
which  suit  English  taciturnity,  but  slur  and  ruin  English 
speech — that  English,  as  spoken,  is  almost  a  different 


AN  INTERNATIONAL  LANGUAGE    359 

language  from  that  which  excites  admiration  when 
written.  So  that  the  exclusive  use  of  English  for  inter- 
national purposes  would  not  be  the  survival  of  the  fittest 
so  far  as  a  language  for  speaking  purposes  is  concerned. 

Moreover,  it  must  be  remembered  that  English  is  not  a 
democratic  language.  It  is  not,  like  the  chief  Romance 
languages  and  the  chief  Teutonic  languages,  practically 
homogeneous,  made  out  of  one  block.  It  is  formed  by  the 
mixture  of  two  utterly  unlike  elements,  one  aristocratic, 
the  other  plebeian.  Ever  since  the  Norman  lord  came 
over  to  England  a  profound  social  inequality  has  become 
rooted  in  the  very  language.  In  French,  bceuf  and  mouton 
and  veau  and  pore  have  always  been  the  same  for  master 
and  for  man,  in  the  field  and  on  the  table  ;  the  animal  has 
never  changed  its  plebeian  name  for  an  aristocratic  name 
as  it  passed  through  the  cook's  hands.  That  example  is 
typical  of  the  curious  mark  which  the  Norman  Conquest 
left  on  our  speech,  rendering  it  so  much  more  difficult  for 
us  than  for  the  French  to  attain  equality  of  social  inter- 
course. Inequality  is  stamped  indelibly  into  our  language 
as  into  no  other  great  language.  Of  course,  from  the 
literary  point  of  view,  that  is  all  gain,  and  has  been  of  in- 
comparable aid  to  our  poets  in  helping  them  to  reach  their 
most  magnificent  effects,  as  we  may  see  conspicuously  in 
Shakespeare's  enormous  vocabulary.  But  from  the  point 
of  view  of  equal  social  intercourse,  this  wealth  of  language 
is  worse  than  lost,  it  is  disastrous.  The  old  feudal  dis- 
tinctions are  still  perpetuated  ;  the  "  man  "  still  speaks 
his  "  plain  Anglo-Saxon,"  and  the  "  gentleman  "  still 
speaks  his  refined  Latinized  speech.  In  every  language, 


360        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

it  is  true,  there  are  social  distinctions  in  speech,  and  every 
language  has  its  slang.  But  in  English  these  distinctions 
are  perpetuated  in  the  very  structure  of  the  language. 
Elsewhere  the  working-class  speak — with  a  little  differ- 
ence in  the  quality — a  language  needing  no  substantial 
transformation  to  become  the  language  of  society,  which 
differs  from  it  in  quality  rather  than  in  kind.  But 
the  English  working  man  feels  the  need  to  translate 
his  common  Anglo-Saxon  speech  into  foreign  words  of 
Latin  origin.  It  is  difficult  for  the  educated  person  in 
England  to  understand  the  struggle  which  the  uneducated 
person  goes  through  to  speak  the  language  of  the  educated, 
although  the  unsatisfactory  result  is  sufficiently  con- 
spicuous. But  we  can  trace  the  operation  of  a  similar 
cause  in  the  hesitancy  of  the  educated  man  himself  when 
he  attempts  to  speak  in  public  and  is  embarrassed  by  the 
search  for  the  set  of  words  most  suited  for  dignified 
purposes. 

Most  of  those  who  regarded  English  as  the  coming 
world-language  admitted  that  it  would  require  improve- 
ment for  general  use.  The  extensive  and  fundamental 
character  of  the  necessary  changes  is  not,  however, 
realized.  The  difficulties  of  English  are  of  four  kinds : 
(i)  its  special  sounds,  very  troublesome  for  foreigners  to 
learn  to  pronounce,  and  the  uncertainty  of  its  accentua- 
tion ;  (2)  its  illogical  and  chaotic  spelling,  inevitably 
leading  to  confusions  in  pronunciation  ;  (3)  the  gram- 
matical irregularities  in  its  verbs  and  plural  nouns ;  and 
(4)  the  great  number  of  widely  different  words  which 
are  almost  or  quite  similar  in  pronunciation.     A  vast 


AN    INTERNATIONAL    LANGUAGE         361 

number  of  absurd  pitfalls  are  thus  prepared  for  the  un- 
wary user  of  English.  He  must  remember  that  the  plural 
of  "  mouse  "  is  "  mice,"  but  that  the  plural  of  "  house  " 
is  not  "  hice,"  that  he  may  speak  of  his  two  "  sons," 
but  not  of  his  two  "  childs  "  ;  he  will  indistinguishably 
refer  to  "  sheeps  "  and  "  ships  "  ;  and  like  the  preacher 
a  little  unfamiliar  with  English  who  had  chosen  a  well- 
known  text  to  preach  on,  he  will  not  remember  whether 
"  plough  "  is  pronounced  "  pluff  "  or  "  plo,"1  and  even 
a  phonetic  spelling  system  would  render  still  more 
confusing  the  confusion  between  such  a  series  of  words  as 
"hair,"  "hare,"  "heir,"  "are,"  "ere"  and  "eyre." 
Many  of  these  irregularities  are  deeply  rooted  in  the 
structure  of  the  language  ;  it  would  be  an  extremely 
difficult  as  well  as  extensive  task  to  remove  them,  and 
when  the  task  was  achieved  the  language  would  have 
lost  much  of  its  character  and  savour  ;  it  would  clash 
painfully  with  literary  English. 

Thus  even  if  we  admitted  that  English  ought  to  be  the 
international  language  of  the  future,  the  result  is  not  so 
satisfactory  from  a  British  point  of  view  as  is  usually 
taken  for  granted.  All  other  civilized  nations  would  be 
bilingual ;  they  would  possess  the  key  not  only  to  their 
own  literature,  but  to  a  great  foreign  literature  with  all 
the  new  horizons  that  a  foreign  literature  opens  out. 
The  English-speaking  countries  alone  would  be  furnished 
with  only  one  language,  and  would  have  no  stimulus  to 

1  The  stumbling-stones  for  the  foreigner  presented  by  English  words 
in  "  ough  "  have  often  been  referred  to,  and  are  clearly  set  forth  in 
the  verses  in  which  Mr.  C.  B.  Loornis  has  sought  to  represent  a  French 


362        THE   TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

acquire  any  other  language,  for  no  other  language  would 
be  of  any  practical  use  to  them.  All  foreigners  would  be 
in  a  position  to  bring  to  the  English-speaking  man  what- 
ever information  they  considered  good  for  him.  At  first 
sight  this  seems  a  gain  for  the  English-speaking  peoples, 
because  they  would  thus  be  spared  a  certain  expenditure 
of  energy  ;   but  a  very  little  reflection  shows  that  such  a 

learner's  experiences — and  the  same  time  to  show  the  criminal  impulses 
which  these  irregularities  arouse  in  the  pupil. 
"  I'm  taught  p-1-o-u-g-h 

Shall  be  pronounced  '  plow,' 
'  Zat's  easy  when  you  know,'  I  say, 
'  Mon  Anglais  I'll  get  through.' 

"  My  teacher  say  zat  in  zat  case 
O-u-g-h  is  '  oo.' 
And  zen  I  laugh  and  say  to  him 
'  Zees  Anglais  make  me  cough.' 

"  He  say,  '  Not  coo,  but  in  zat  word 
O-u-g-h  is  "  off,"  ' 
Oh,  sacre  bleu !  such  varied  sounds 
Of  words  make  me  hiccough  ! 

"  He  say,  'Again,  mon  friend  ees  wrong  ! 
O-u-g-h  is  "  up," 
In  hiccough.'    Zen  I  cry,  '  No  more, 
You  make  my  throat  feel  rough.' 

"  '  Non  !  non  !  '  he  cry,  '  you  are  not  right — 
O-u-g-h  is  "  uff."  ' 
I  say,  '  I  try  to  speak  your  words, 
I  can't  prononz  zem  though.' 

" '  In  time  you'll  learn,  but  now  you're  wrong, 
O-u-g-h  is  "  owe."  * 
'  I'll  try  no  more.    I  sail  go  mad, 
I'll  drown  me  in  ze  lough  !  ' 

"  '  But  ere  you  drown  yourself,'  said  he, 
'  O-u-g-h  is  "  ock."  ' 
He  taught  no  more  !    I  held  him  fast, 
And  killed  him  wiz  a  rough  !  " 


AN    INTERNATIONAL    LANGUAGE         363 

saving  of  energy  is  like  that  effected  by  the  intestinal 
parasitic  worm  who  has  digested  food  brought  ready  to 
his  mouth.     It  leads  to  degeneracy.     Not  the  people 
whose  language  is  learnt,  but  the  people  who  learn  a 
language  reap  the  benefit,  spiritual  and  material.     It  is 
now  admitted  in  the  commercial  world  that  the  ardour 
of  the  Germans  in  learning  English  has  brought  more 
advantage  to  the  Germans  than  to  the  English.    More- 
over, the  high  intellectual  level  of  small  nations  at  the 
present  time  is  due  largely  to  the  fact  that  all  their 
educated  members  must  be  familiar  with  one  or  two 
languages '  besides  their  own.     The  great  defect  of  the 
English  mind  is  insularity  ;    the  virtue  of  its  boisterous 
energy  is  accompanied  by  lack  of  insight  into  the  differing 
virtues  of  other  peoples.    If  the  natural  course  of  events 
led  to  the   exclusive   use  of   English   for  international 
communication,  this  defect  would  be  still  more  accen- 
tuated.    The  immense   value  of  becoming  acquainted 
with  a  foreign  language  is  that  we  are  thereby  led  into  a 
new  world  of  tradition  and  thought  and  feeling.    Before 
we  know  a  new  language  truly,  we  have  to  realize  that 
the  words  which  at  first  seem  equivalent  to  words  in  our 
own  language  often  have  a  totally  different  atmosphere,  a 
different  rank  or  dignity  from  that  which  they  occupy  in 
our  own  language.    It  is  in  learning  this  difference  in  the 
moral  connotation  of  a  language  and  its  expression  in 
literature  that  we  reap  the  real  benefit  of  knowing  a 
foreign  tongue.     There  is  no  other  way — not  even  resi- 
dence in  a  foreign  land  if  we  are  ignorant  of  the  language 
— to  take  us  out  of  the  customary  circle  of  our  own 


364        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

traditions.  It  imparts  a  mental  flexibility  and  emotional 
sympathy  which  no  other  discipline  can  yield.  To  ordain 
that  all  non-English-speaking  peoples  should  learn 
English  in  addition  to  their  mother  tongue,  and  to  render 
it  practically  unnecessary  for  English-speakers  (except 
the  small  class  of  students)  to  learn  any  other  language, 
would  be  to  confer  an  immense  boon  on  the  first  group  of 
peoples,  doubling  their  mental  and  emotional  capacity  ; 
it  is  to  render  the  second  group  hidebound. 

When  we  take  a  broad  and  impartial  survey  of  the 
question  we  thus  see  that  there  is  reason  to  believe  that, 
while  English  is  an  admirable  literary  language  (this  is 
the  ground  that  its  eulogists  always  take),  and  sufficiently 
concise  for  commercial  purposes,  it  is  by  no  means  an 
adequate  international  tongue,  especially  for  purposes 
of  oral  speech,  and,  moreover,  its  exclusive  use  for  this 
purpose  would  be  a  misfortune  for  the  nations  already 
using  it,  since  they  would  be  deprived  of  that  mental 
flexibility  and  emotional  sympathy  which  no  discipline 
can  give  so  well  as  knowledge  of  a  living  foreign  tongue. 

Many  who  realized  these  difficulties  put  forward  French 
as  the  auxiliary  international  language.  It  is  quite 
true  that  the  power  behind  French  is  now  relatively 
less  than  it  was  two  centuries  ago.1    At  that  time  France 

1  It  is  interesting  to  remember  that  at  one  period  in  European 
history,  French  seemed  likely  to  absorb  English,  and  thus  to  acquire, 
in  addition  to  its  own  motor  force,  all  the  motor  force  which  now 
lies  behind  English.  When  the  Normans— a  vigorous  people  of 
Scandinavian  origin,  speaking  a  Romance  tongue,  and  therefore  well 
fitted  to  accomplish  a  harmonizing  task  of  this  kind — occupied  both 
sides  of  the  English  Channel,  it  seemed  probable  that  they  would 
dominate  the  speech  of  England  as  well  as  of  France.    "  At  that  time," 


AN  INTERNATIONAL  LANGUAGE    365 

by  its  relatively  large  population,  the  tradition  of  its 
military  greatness,  and  its  influential  political  position, 
was  able  to  exert  an  immense  influence  ;   French  was  the 
language  of  intellect  and  society  in  Germany,  in  England, 
in  Russia,  everywhere  in  fact.     During  the  eighteenth 
century  internal  maladministration,  the  cataclysm  of  the 
Revolution,  and  finally  the  fatal  influence  of  Napoleon 
alienated  foreign  sympathy,  and  France  lost  her  com- 
manding position.    Yet  it  was  reasonably  felt  that,  if  a 
natural  language  is  to  be  used  for  international  purposes, 
after  English  there  is  no  practicable  alternative  to  French. 
French   is   the   language   not   indeed   in   any  special 
sense  of  science  or  of  commerce,  but  of  the  finest  human 
culture.     It  is  a  well-organized  tongue,  capable  of  the 
finest  shades  of  expression,  and  it  is  the  key  to  a  great 
literature.    In  most  respects  it  is  the  best  favoured  child 
of  Latin  ;   it  commends  itself  to  all  who  speak  Romance 
languages,  and,  as  Alphonse  de  Candolle  has  remarked, 
a  Spaniard  and  an  Italian  know  three-quarters  of  French 
beforehand,  and  every  one  who  has  learnt  Latin  knows 


says  Meray  (La  Vie  aux  Temps  des  Cours  a" Amour,  p.  367),  who  puts 
forward  this  view,  "  the  people  of  the  two  coasts  of  the  Channel  were 
closer  in  customs  and  in  speech  than  were  for  a  long  time  the  French  on 
the  opposite  banks  of  the  Loire.  .  .  .  The  influential  part  of  the  English 
nation  and  all  the  people  of  its  southern  regions  spoke  the  Romance 
of  the  north  of  France.  In  the  Crusades  the  Knights  of  the  two  peoples 
often  mixed,  and  were  greeted  as  Franks  wherever  their  adventurous 
spirit  led  them.  If  Edward  III,  with  the  object  of  envenoming  an 
antagonism  which  served  his  own  ends,  had  not  broken  this  link  of 
language,  the  two  peoples  would  perhaps  have  been  united  to-day  in 
the  same  efforts  of  progress  and  of  liberty.  ...  Of  what  a  fine  instru- 
ment of  culture  and  of  progress  has  not  that  fatal  decree  of  Edward 
III  deprived  civilization  !  " 


366        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

half  of  French  already.  It  is  more  admirably  adapted 
for  speaking  purposes  than  perhaps  any  other  language 
which  has  any  claim  to  be  used  for  international  purposes, 
as  we  should  expect  of  the  tongue  spoken  by  a  people 
who  have  excelled  in  oratory,  who  possess  such  widely 
diffused  dramatic  ability,  and  who  have  carried  the  arts 
of  social  intercourse  to  the  highest  point. 

Paris  remains  for  most  people  the  intellectual  capital 
of  Europe  ;  French  is  still  very  generally  used  for  pur- 
poses of  intercommunication  throughout  Europe,  while 
the  difficulty  experienced  by  all  but  Germans  and  Rus- 
sians in  learning  English  is  well  known.  Li  Hung  Chang 
is  reported  to  have  said  that,  while  for  commercial  reasons 
English  is  far  more  widely  used  in  China  than  French, 
the  Chinese  find  French  a  much  easier  language  to  learn 
to  speak,  and  the  preferences  of  the  Chinese  may  one  day 
count  for  a  good  deal — in  one  direction  or  another — in 
the  world's  progress.  One  frequently  hears  that  the  use 
of  French  for  international  purposes  is  decaying  «  this 
is  a  delusion  probably  due  to  the  relatively  slow  growth 
of  the  French-speaking  races  and  to  various  temporary 
political  causes.  It  is  only  necessary  to  look  at  the  large 
International  Medical  Congresses.  Thus  at  one  such 
Congress  at  Rome,  at  which  I  was  present,  over  six 
thousand  members  came  from  forty-two  countries  of  the 
globe,  and  over  two  thousand  of  them  took  part  in  the 
proceedings.  Four  languages  (Italian,  French,  German 
and  English)  were  used  at  this  Congress.  Going  over  the 
seven  large  volumes  of  Transactions,  I  find  that  fifty-nine 
communications  were  presented  in  English,  one  hundred 


AN    INTERNATIONAL    LANGUAGE         367 

and  seventy-one  in  German,  three  hundred  and  one  in 
French,  the  rest  in  Italian.  The  proportion  of  English 
communications  to  German  is  thus  a  little  more  than  one 
to  three,  and  the  proportion  of  English  to  French  less 
than  one  to  six.  Moreover,  the  English-speaking  mem- 
bers invariably  (I  believe)  used  their  own  language,  so 
that  these  fifty-nine  communications  represent  the  whole 
contribution  of  the  English-speaking  world.  And  they 
represent  nothing  more  than  that ;  notwithstanding  the 
enormous  spread  of  English,  of  which  we  hear  so  much, 
not  a  single  non-English  speaker  seems  to  have  used 
English.  It  might  be  supposed  that  this  preponderance 
of  French  was  due  to  a  preponderance  of  the  French 
element,  but  this  was  by  no  means  the  case  ;  the  members 
of  English-speaking  race  greatly  exceeded  those  of  French- 
speaking  race.  But,  while  the  English  communications 
represented  the  English-speaking  countries  only,  and  the 
German  communications  were  chiefly  by  German  speakers, 
French  was  spoken  not  only  by  members  belonging  to 
the  smaller  nations  of  Europe,  from  the  north  and  from 
the  south,  by  the  Russians,  by  most  of  the  Turkish  and 
Asiatic  members,  but  also  by  all  the  Mexicans  and  South 
Americans.  These  figures  may  not  be  absolutely  free 
from  fallacy,  due  to  temporary  causes  of  fluctuation. 
But  that  they  are  fairly  exact  is  shown  by  the  results  of 
the  following  Congress,  held  at  Moscow.  If  I  take  up  the 
programme  for  the  department  of  psychiatry  and  nervous 
disease,  in  which  I  was  myself  chiefly  interested,  I  find 
that  of  131  communications,  80  were  in  French,  37  in 
German  and  14  in  English.     This  shows  that  French, 


368        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

German  and  English  bear  almost  exactly  the  same  relation 
to  one  another  as  at  Rome.  In  other  words,  61  per  cent 
of  the  speakers  used  French,  28  per  cent  German,  and 
only  11  per  cent  English. 

If  we  come  down  to  one  of  the  most  recent  International 
Medical  Congresses,  that  of  Lisbon  in  1906,  we  find  that 
the  supremacy  of  French,  far  from  weakening,  is  more 
emphatically  affirmed.    The  language  of  the  country  in 
which  the  Congress  was  held  was  ruled  out,  and  I  find 
that  of  666  contributions  to  the  proceedings  of  the  Con- 
gress, over  84  per  cent  were  in  French,  scarcely  more  than 
8  per  cent  in  English,  and  less  than  7  per  cent  in  Ger- 
man.   At  the  subsequent  Congress  at  Budapesth  in  1909, 
the  French  contributions  were  to  the  English  as  three  to 
one.     Similar  results  are  shown  by  other  International 
Congresses.    Thus  at  the  third  International  Congress  of 
Psychology,   held   at   Munich,   there   were   four   official 
languages,  and  on  grounds  of  locality  the  majority  of 
communications  were  in  German  ;   French  followed  with 
29,  Italian  with  12,  and  English  brought  up  the  rear  with 
11.    Dr.  Westermarck,  who  is  the  stock  example  of  the 
spread  of  English  for  international  purposes,  spoke  in 
German.     It  is  clearly  futile  to  point  to  figures  showing 
the  prolific  qualities  of  English  races  ;   the  moral  quality 
of  a  race  and  its  language  counts,  as  well  as  mere  physical 
capacity  for  breeding,  and  the  moral  influence  of  French 
to-day  is  immensely  greater  than  that  of  English.    That 
is,  indeed,  scarcely  a  fair  statement  of  the  matter  in  view 
of  the  typical  cases  just  quoted ;    one  should  rather  say 
that,  as  a  means  of  spoken  international  communication 


AN    INTERNATIONAL    LANGUAGE         369 

for  other  than  commercial  purposes,  English  is  no- 
where. 

There  is  one  other  point  which  serves  to  give  prestige  to 
French  :  its  literary  supremacy  in  the  modern  world. 
While  some  would  claim  for  the  English  the  supreme 
poetic  literature,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  French 
own  the  supreme  prose  literature  of  modern  Europe.  It 
was  felt  by  those  who  advocated  the  adoption  of  English 
or  French  that  it  would  surely  be  a  gain  for  human 
progress  if  the  auxiliary  international  languages  of  the 
future  should  be  one,  if  not  both,  of  two  that  possess 
great  literatures,  and  which  embody  cultures  in  some 
respects  allied,  but  in  most  respects  admirably  supple- 
menting each  other.1 

The  collapse  of  Volapiik  stimulated  the  energy  of  those 
who  believed  that  the  solution  of  the  question  lay  in  the 
adoption  of  a  natural  language.  To-day,  however,  there 
are  few  persons  who,  after  carefully  considering  the 
matter,  regard  this  solution  as  probable  or  practicable.2 

1  I  was  at  one  time  (Progressive  Review,  April,  1897)  inclined  to  think 
that  the  adoption  of  both  English  and  French,  as  joint  auxiliary 
international  languages — the  first  for  writing  and  the  second  for  speak- 
ing— might  solve  the  problem.  I  have  since  recognized  that  such  a 
solution,  however  advantageous  it  might  be  for  human  culture,  would 
present  many  difficulties,  and  is  quite  impracticable. 

2  I  may  refer  to  three  able  papers  which  have  appeared  in  recent 
years  in  the  Popular  Science  Monthly  :  Anna  Monsch  Roberts,  "  The 
Problem  of  International  Speech  "  (February,  1908);  Ivy  Kellerman, 
"  The  Necessity  for  an  International  Language,"  (September,  1909)  ; 
Albert  Leon  Guerard,  "  English  as  an  International  Language " 
(October,  191 1).  All  these  writers  reject  as  impracticable  the  adoption 
of  either  English  or  French  as  the  auxiliary  international  language, 
and  view  with  more  favour  the  adoption  of  an  artificial  language  such 
as  Esperanto. 

2  B 


370        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

Considerations  of  two  orders  seem  now  to  be  decisive 
in  rejecting  the  claims  of  English  and  French,  or,  indeed, 
any  other  natural  language,  to  be  accepted  as  an  inter- 
national language :  (i)  The  vast  number  of  peculiarities, 
difficulties,  and  irregularities,  rendering  necessary  so 
revolutionary  a  change  for  international  purposes  that 
the  language  would  be  almost  transformed  into  an  arti- 
ficial language,  and  perhaps  not  even  then  an  entirely 
satisfactory  one.  (2)  The  extraordinary  development 
during  recent  years  of  the  minor  national  languages,  and 
the  jealousy  of  foreign  languages  which  this  revival  has 
caused.  This  latter  factor  is  probably  alone  fatal  to  the 
adoption  of  any  living  language.  It  can  scarcely  be 
disputed  that  neither  English  nor  French  occupies  to-day 
so  relatively  influential  a  position  as  it  once  occupied. 
The  movement  against  the  use  of  French  in  Roumania, 
as  detrimental  to  the  national  language,  is  significant  of 
a  widespread  feeling,  while,  as  regards  English,  the 
introduction  by  the  Germans  into  commerce  of  the 
method  of  approaching  customers  in  their  own  tongue, 
has  rendered  impossible  the  previous  English  custom  of 
treating  English  as  the  general  language  of  commerce. 

The  natural  languages,  it  became  realized,  fail  to 
answer  to  the  requirements  which  must  be  made  of  an 
auxiliary  international  language.  The  conditions  which 
have  to  be  fulfilled  are  thus  formulated  by  Anna  Roberts: 1 

"  First,  a  vocabulary  having  a  maximum  of  inter- 
nationality  in  its  root-words  for  at  least  the  Indo-European 
races,  living  or  bordering  on  the  confines  of  the  old  Roman 

1  A.  M.  Roberts,  op   cit. 


AN    INTERNATIONAL    LANGUAGE         371 

Empire,  whose  vocabularies  are  already  saturated  with 
Greek  and  Latin  roots,  absorbed  during  the  long  centuries 
of  contact  with  Greek  and  Roman  civilization.  As  the 
centre  of  gravity  of  the  world's  civilization  now  stands, 
this  seems  the  most  rational  beginning.  Such  a  language 
shall  then  have  : 

"  Second,  a  grammatical  structure  stripped  of  all  the 
irregularities  found  in  every  existing  tongue,  and  that 
shall  be  simpler  than  any  of  them.     It  shall  have  : 

"  Third,  a  single,  unalterable  sound  for  each  letter,  no 
silent  letters,  no  difficult,  complex,  shaded  sounds,  but 
simple  primary  sounds,  capable  of  being  combined  into 
harmonious  words,  which  latter  shall  have  but  a  single 
stress  accent  that  never  shifts. 

"  Fourth,  mobility  of  structure,  aptness  for  the  ex- 
pression of  complex  ideas,  but  in  ways  that  are  gramma- 
tically simple,  and  by  means  of  words  that  can  easily  be 
analysed  without  a  dictionary. 

"  Fifth,  it  must  be  capable  of  being,  not  merely  a 
literary  language,1  but  a  spoken  tongue,  having  a  pro- 
nunciation that  can  be  perfectly  mastered  by  adults 
through  the  use  of  manuals,  and  in  the  absence  of  oral 
teachers. 

"  Finally,  and  as  a  necessary  corollary  and  complement 
to  all  of  the  above,  this  international  auxiliary  language 
must,  to  be  of  general  utility,  be  exceedingly  easy  of 
acquisition    by    persons    of    but    moderate    education, 

1  It  should  be  added,  however,  that  the  auxiliary  language  need  not 
be  used  as  a  medium  for  literary  art,  and  it  is  a  mistake,  as  Pfaundler 
points  out,  to  translate  poems  into  such  a  language. 


372        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

and  hitherto  conversant  with  no  language  but  their 
own." 

Thus  the  way  was  prepared  for  the  favourable  reception 
of  a  new  artificial  language,  which  had  in  the  meanwhile 
been  elaborated.  Dr.  Zamenhof,  a  Russian  physician 
living  at  Warsaw,  had  been  from  youth  occupied  with  the 
project  of  an  international  language,  and  in  1887  he  put 
forth  in  French  his  scheme  for  a  new  language  to  be 
called  Esperanto.  The  scheme  attracted  little  notice  ; 
Volapiik  was  then  at  the  zenith  of  its  career,  and  when  it 
fell,  its  fall  discredited  all  attempts  at  an  artificial  lan- 
guage. But,  like  Volapiik,  Esperanto  found  its  great 
apostle  in  France.  M.  Louis  de  Beaufront  brought  his 
high  ability  and  immense  enthusiasm  to  the  work  of 
propaganda,  and  the  success  of  Esperanto  in  the  world  is 
attributed  in  large  measure  to  him.  The  extension  of 
Esperanto  is  now  threatening  to  rival  that  of  Volapiik. 
Many  years  ago  Max  Muller,  and  subsequently  Skeat, 
notwithstanding  the  philologist's  prejudice  in  favour  of 
natural  languages,  expressed  their  approval  of  Esperanto, 
and  many  persons  of  distinction,  moving  in  such  widely 
remote  spheres  as  Tolstoy  and  Sir  William  Ramsay,  have 
since  signified  their  acceptance  and  their  sympathy. 
Esperanto  Congresses  are  regularly  held,  Esperanto 
Societies  and  Esperanto  Consulates  are  established  in 
many  parts  of  the  world,  a  great  number  of  books  and 
journals  are  published  in  Esperanto,  and  some  of  the 
world's  classics  have  been  translated  into  it. 

It  is  generally  recognized  that  Esperanto  represents  a 
great  advance  on  Volapiik.     Yet  there  are  already  signs 


AN    INTERNATIONAL    LANGUAGE         373 

that  Esperanto  is  approaching  the  climax  of  its  reputation, 
and  that  possibly  its  inventor  may  share  the  fate  of  the 
inventor  of  Volapiik  and  outlive  his  own  language.  The 
most  serious  attack  on  Esperanto  has  come  from  within. 
The  most  intelligent  Esperantists  have  realized  the 
weakness  and  defects  of  their  language  (in  some  measure 
due  to  the  inevitable  Slavonic  prepossessions  of  its 
inventor)  and  demand  radical  reforms,  which  the  con- 
servative party  resist.  Even  M.  de  Beaufront,  to  whom 
its  success  was  largely  due,  has  abandoned  primitive 
Esperanto,  and  various  scientific  men  of  high  distinction 
in  several  countries  now  advocate  the  supersession  of 
Esperanto  by  an  improved  language  based  upon  it  and 
called  Ido.  Professor  Lorenz,  who  is  among  the  advo- 
cates of  Ido,  admits  that  Esperanto  has  shown  the  possi- 
bility of  a  synthetic  language,  but  states  definitely  that 
"  according  to  the  concordant  testimony  of  all  unbiased 
opinions  "  Esperanto  in  no  wise  represents  the  final 
solution  of  the  problem.  This  new  movement  is  embodied 
in  the  Delegation  pour  l'Adoption  d'une  Langue  Auxiliaire 
Internationale,  founded  in  Paris  during  the  International 
Exhibition  in  1900  by  various  eminent  literary  and 
scientific  men,  and  having  its  head-quarters  in  Paris. 
The  Delegation  consider  that  the  problem  demands  a 
purely  scientific  and  technical  solution,  and  it  is  claimed 
that  40  per  cent  of  the  stems  of  Ido  are  common  to  six 
languages  :  German,  English,  French,  Italian,  Russian 
and  Spanish.  The  Delegation  appear  to  have  approached 
the  question  with  a  fairly  open  mind,  and  it  was  only 
after  study  of  the  subject  that  they  finally  reached  the 


374        THE   TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

conclusion  that  Esperanto  contained  a  sufficient  number 
of  good  qualities  to  furnish  a  basis  on  which  to  work.1 

The  general  programme  of  the  Delegation  is  that  (i) 
an  auxiliary  international  language  is  required,  adapted 
to  written  and  oral  language  between  persons  of  different 
mother  tongues ;  (2)  such  language  must  be  capable  of 
serving  the  needs  of  science,  daily  life,  commerce,  and 
general  intercourse,  and  must  be  of  such  a  character  that 
it  may  easily  be  learnt  by  persons  of  average  elementary 
education,  especially  those  of  civilized  European  nation- 
ality ;  (3)  the  decision  to  rest  with  the  International 
Association  of  Academies,  and,  in  case  of  their  refusal, 
with  the  Committee  of  the  Delegation.2 

The  Delegation  is  seeking  to  bring  about  an  official 
international  Congress  which  would  either  itself  or 
through  properly  appointed  experts  establish  an  inter- 
nationally and  officially  recognized  auxiliary  language. 
The  chief  step  made  in  this  direction  has  been  the  forma- 
tion at  Berne  in  191 1  of  an  international  association 
whose  object  is  to  take  immediate  steps  towards  bringing 
the  question  before  the  Governments  of  Europe.  The 
Association  is  pledged  to  observe  a  strict  neutrality  in 
regard  to  the  language  to  be  chosen. 

The  whole  question  seems  thus  to  have  been  placed  on 
a  sounder  basis  than  hitherto.     The  international  lan- 

1  See  International  Language  and  Science,  1910,  byCouturat,  Jespersen, 
Lorenz,  Ostwald,  Pfaundler,  and  Donnan,  five  professors  living  in 
five  different  countries. 

2  The  progress  of  the  movement  is  recorded  in  its  official  journal, 
Progreso,  edited  byCouturat,  and  in  De  Beaufront's  journal,  La  Langue 
Auxiliaire. 


AN    INTERNATIONAL    LANGUAGE         375 

guage  of  the  future  cannot  be,  and  ought  not  to  be, 
settled  by  a  single  individual  seeking  to  impose  his  own 
invention  on  the  world.  This  is  not  a  matter  for  zealous 
propaganda  of  an  almost  religious  character.  The  hasty 
and  premature  adoption  of  some  privately  invented 
language  merely  retards  progress.  No  individual  can 
settle  the  question  by  himself.  What  we  need  is  calm 
study  and  deliberation  between  the  nations  and  the  classes 
chiefly  concerned,  acting  through  the  accredited  repre- 
sentatives of  their  Governments  and  other  professional 
bodies.  Nothing  effective  can  be  done  until  the  pressure 
of  popular  opinion  has  awakened  Governments  and 
scientific  societies  to  the  need  for  action.  The  question  of 
international  arbitration  has  become  practical ;  the 
question  of  the  international  language  ought  to  go  hand 
in  hand  with  that  of  international  arbitration.  They  are 
closely  allied  and  both  equally  necessary. 

While  the  educational,  commercial,  and  official  advan- 
tages of  an  auxiliary  international  language  are  obvious, 
it  seems  to  me  that  from  the  standpoint  of  social  hygiene 
there  are  at  least  three  interests  which  are  especially  and 
deeply  concerned  in  the  settlement  of  this  question. 

The  first  and  chief  is  that  of  international  democracy 
in  its  efforts  to  attain  an  understanding  on  labour  ques- 
tions. There  can  be  no  solution  of  this  question  until  a 
simpler  mode  of  personal  communication  has  become 
widely  prevalent.  This  matter  has  from  time  to  time 
already  been  brought  before  international  labour  con- 
gresses, and  those  who  attend  such  congresses  have 
doubtless  had  occasion  to  realize  how  essential  it  is. 


376        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

Perhaps  it  is  a  chief  factor  in  the  comparative  failure  of 
such  congresses  hitherto. 

Science  represents  the  second  great  interest  which  has 
shown  an  active  concern  in  the  settlement  of  this  question. 
To  follow  up  any  line  of  scientific  research  is  already  a 
sufficiently  gigantic  work,  on  account  of  the  absence  of 
proper  bibliographical  organization  ;  it  becomes  almost 
overwhelming  now  that  the  search  has  to  extend  over  at 
least  half  a  dozen  languages,  and  still  leaves  the  searcher 
a  stranger  to  the  important  investigations  which  are 
appearing  in  Russian  and  in  Japanese,  and  will  before  long 
appear  in  other  languages.  Sir  Michael  Foster  once  drew 
a  humorous  picture  of  the  woes  of  the  physiologist  owing 
to  these  causes.  In  other  fields — especially  in  the  numer- 
ous branches  of  anthropological  research,  as  I  can  myself 
bear  witness — the  worker  is  even  worse  off  than  the 
physiologist.  Just  now  science  is  concentrating  its 
energies  on  the  organization  of  bibliography,  but  much 
attention  has  been  given  to  this  question  of  an  inter- 
national language  from  time  to  time,  and  it  is  likely  before 
long  to  come  pressingly  to  the  front. 

The  medical  profession  is  also  practically  concerned  in 
this  question  ;  hitherto  it  has,  indeed,  taken  a  more 
lively  interest  in  the  effort  to  secure  an  international 
language  than  has  pure  science.  It  is  of  the  first  impor- 
tance that  new  discoveries  and  methods  in  medicine  and 
hygiene  should  be  rendered  immediately  accessible ; 
while  the  now  enormously  extended  domain  of  medicine 
is  full  of  great  questions  which  can  only  be  solved  by 
international    co-operation    on    an    international    basis. 


AN    INTERNATIONAL    LANGUAGE         377 

The  responsibility  of  advocating  a  number  of  measures 
affecting  the  well-being  of  communities  lies,  in  the  first 
place,  with  the  medical  profession  ;  but  no  general  agree- 
ment is  possible  without  full  facilities  for  discussion  in 
international  session.  This  has  been  generally  recog- 
nized ;  hence  the  numerous  attempts  to  urge  a  single 
language  on  the  organizers  of  the  international  medical 
congresses.  I  have  already  observed  how  large  and 
active  these  congresses  were.  Yet  it  cannot  be  said  that 
any  results  are  achieved  commensurate  with  the  world- 
wide character  of  such  congresses.  Partly  this  is  due  to 
the  fact  that  the  organizers  of  international  congresses 
have  not  yet  learnt  what  should  be  the  scope  of  such 
conferences,  and  what  they  may  legitimately  hope  to  per- 
form ;  but  very  largely  because  there  is  no  international 
method  of  communication ;  and,  except  for  a  few 
seasoned  cosmopolitans,  no  truly  international  exchange 
of  opinions  takes  place.  This  can  only  be  possible  when 
we  have  a  really  common  and  familiar  method  of  inter- 
communication. 

These  three  interests — democratic,  scientific,  medical — 
seem  at  present  those  chiefly  concerned  in  the  task  of 
putting  this  matter  on  a  definite  basis,  and  it  is  much  to 
be  desired  that  they  should  come  to  some  common  agree- 
ment. They  represent  three  immensely  important 
modes  of  social  and  intellectual  activity,  and  the  progress 
of  every  nation  is  bound  up  with  an  international  progress 
of  which  they  are  now  the  natural  pioneers.  It  cannot  be 
too  often  repeated  that  the  day  has  gone  by  when  any 
progress  worthy  of  the  name  can  be  purely  national. 


378        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

All  the  most  vital  questions  of  national  progress  tend  to 
merge  themselves  into  international  questions.  But 
before  any  question  of  international  progress  can  result 
in  anything  but  noisy  confusion,  we  need  a  recognized 
mode  of  international  intelligence  and  communication. 
That  is  why  the  question  of  the  auxiliary  international 
language  is  of  actual  and  vital  interest  to  all  who  are 
concerned  with  the  tasks  of  social  hygiene. 

THE  QUESTION   ON   INTERNATIONAL  COINAGE 

It  must  be  remembered  that  the  international  auxiliary 
language  is  an  organic  part  of  a  larger  internationalization 
which  must  inevitably  be  effected,  and  is  indeed  already 
coming  into  being.  Two  related  measures  of  intercommuni- 
cation are  an  international  system  of  postage  stamps,  and  an 
international  coinage,  to  which  may  be  added  an  international 
system  of  weights  and  measures,  which  seems  to  be  already 
in  course  of  settlement  by  the  increasingly  general  adoption 
of  the  metric  system.  The  introduction  of  the  exchangeable 
international  stamp  coupon  represents  the  beginning  of  a 
truly  international  postal  system ;  but  it  is  only  a  beginning. 
If  a  completely  developed  international  postal  system  were 
incidentally  to  deliver  some  nations,  and  especially  the  Eng- 
lish, from  the  depressingly  ugly  postage  stamps  they  are 
now  condemned  to  use,  this  reform  would  possess  a  further 
advantage  almost  as  great  as  its  practical  utility.  An  inter- 
national coinage  is,  again,  a  prime  necessity,  which  would 
possess  immense  commercial  advantages  in  addition  to  the 
great  saving  of  trouble  it  would  effect.  The  progress  of 
civilization  is  already  working  towards  an  international 
coinage.  In  an  interesting  paper  on  this  subject  ("  Inter- 
national Coinage,"  Popular  Science  Monthly,  March,  1910) 
T.  F.  van  Wagenen  writes  :     "  Each  in  its  way,  the  great 


AN    INTERNATIONAL    LANGUAGE         379 

commercial  nations  of  the  day  are  unconsciously  engaged  in 
the  task.     The  English  shilling  is  working  northwards  from 
the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  has  already  come  in  touch  with  the 
German  mark  and  the  Portuguese  peseta  which  have  been 
introduced  on  both  the  east  and  west  sides  of  the  Continent, 
and  will  in  due  time  meet  the  French  franc  and  Italian 
lira  coming  south  from  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean. 
In  Asia,  the  Indian  rupee,  the  Russian  rouble,  the  Japanese 
yen,  and  the  American-Philippine  coins  are  already  competing 
for  the  patronage  of  the  Malay  and  the  Chinaman.    In  South 
America  neither  American  nor  European  coins  have  any  foot- 
hold,  the  Latin-American  nations  being  well  supplied  by 
systems  of  their  own,  all  related  more  or  less  closely  to  the 
coinage  of  Mexico  or  Portugal.   Thus  the  plainly  evolutionary 
task  of  pushing  civilization  into  the  uneducated  parts  of  the 
world  through  commerce  is  as  badly  hampered  by  the  different 
coins  offered  to  the  barbarian  as  are  the  efforts  of  the  evange- 
lists to  introduce  Christianity  by  the  existence  of  the  various 
denominations  and  creeds.     The  Church  is  beginning  to  ap- 
preciate the  wastage  in  its  efforts,  and  is  trying  to  minimize 
it  by  combinations  among  the  denominations  having  for  their 
object  to  standardize  Christianity,  so  to  speak,  by  reducing 
tenet  and  dogma  to  the  lowest  possible  terms.    Commerce 
must  do  the  same.     The  white  man's  coins  must  be  stan- 
dardized   and   simplified.  .  .  .  The   international   coin    will 
come  in  a  comparatively  short  time,  just  as  will  arrive  the 
international  postage  stamp,  which,   by  the  way,   is  very 
badly  needed.    For  the  upper  classes  of  all  countries,  the  people 
who  travel,  and  have  to  stand  the  nuisance  and  loss  of  changing 
their  money  at  every  frontier,  the  bankers  and  international 
merchants  who  have  to  cumber  their  accounts  with   the 
fluctuating  item  of  exchange  between   commercial  centres 
will  insist  upon  it.     All  the  European   nations,   with   the 
exception  of  Russia  and  Turkey,  are  ready  for  the  change, 
and  when  these  reach  the  stage  of  real  constitutionalism  in 


380        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

their  progress  upward,  they  will  be  compelled  to  follow,  being 
ahead)7  deeply  in  debt  to  the  French,  English,  and  Germans. 
Japan  may  be  counted  upon  to  acquiesce  instantly  in  any 
unit  agreed  upon  by  the  rest  of  the  civilized  world." 

This  writer  points  out  that  the  opening  out  of  the  uncivilized 
parts  of  the  world  to  commerce  will  alone  serve  to  make  an 
international  coinage  absolutely  indispensable. 

Without,  however,  introducing  a  really  new  system,  an 
auxiliary  international  money  system  (corresponding  to  an 
auxiliary  international  language)  could  be  introduced  as  a 
medium  of  exchange  without  interfering  with  the  existing 
coinages  of  the  various  nations.  Rene  de  Saussure  (writing 
in  the  Journal  de  Geneve,  in  1907)  has  insisted  on  the  immense 
benefit  such  a  system  of  "  monnaie  de  compte  "  would  be 
in  removing  the  burden  imposed  upon  all  international 
financial  relations  by  the  diversity  of  money  values.  He 
argues  that  the  best  point  of  union  wTould  be  a  gold  piece  of 
eight  grammes — almost  exactly  equivalent  to  one  pound, 
twenty  marks,  five  dollars,  and  twenty-five  francs — being, 
in  fact,  but  one- third  of  a  penny  different  from  the  value  of 
a  pound  sterling.  For  the  subdivisions  the  point  of  union 
must  be  decimally  divided,  and  M.  de  Saussure  would  give 
the  name  of  speso  to  a  ten-thousandth  part  of  the  gold  coin. 


XII 

INDIVIDUALISM    AND    SOCIALISM 

Social  Hygiene  in  Relation  to  the  Alleged  Opposition  between  Socialism 
and  Individualism — The  Two  Parties  in  Politics — The  Relation 
of  Conservatism  and  Radicalism  to  Socialism  and  Individualism — 
The  Basis  of  Socialism — The  Basis  of  Individualism — The  seeming 
Opposition  between  Socialism  and  Individualism  merely  a  Division 
of  Labour — Both  Socialism  and  Individualism  equally  Necessary — 
Not  only  Necessary  but  Indispensable  to  each  other — The  Conflict 
between  the  Advocates  of  Environment  and  Heredity — A  New 
Embodiment  of  the  supposed  Conflict  between  Socialism  and 
Individualism — The  Place  of  Eugenics — Social  Hygiene  ultimately 
one  with  the  Hygiene  of  the  Soul — The  Function  of  Utopias. 

tHE  controversy  between  Individualism  and 
Socialism,  the  claim  of  the  personal  unit  as 
against  the  claim  of  the  collective  community, 
is  of  ancient  date,'  Yet  it  is  ever  new  and  constantly 
presented  afresh.  It  even  seems  to  become  more  acute  as 
civilization  progresses.  Every  scheme  of  social  reform, 
every  powerful  manifestation  of  individual  energy,  raise 
anew  a  problem  that  is  never  out  of  date. 

It  is  inevitable,  indeed,  that  with  the  development 
of  social  hygiene  during  the  past  hundred  years  there 
should  also  develop  a  radical  opposition  of  opinion  as  to 
the  methods  by  which  such  hygiene  ought  to  be  accom- 
plished. There  has  always  been  this  opposition  in  the 
political  sphere  ;  it  is  natural  to  find  it  also  in  the  social 
sphere.     The  very  fact  that  old-fashioned  politics  are 

381 


382        THE   TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

becoming  more  and  more  transformed  into  questions  of 
social  hygiene  itself  ensures  the  continuance  of  such  an 
opposition. 

In  politics,  and  especially  in  the  politics  of  constitu- 
tional countries  of  which  England  is  the  type,  there  are 
normally  two  parties.  There  is  the  party  that  holds  by 
tradition,  by  established  order  and  solidarity,  the  main- 
tenance of  the  ancient  hierarchical  constitution  of  society, 
and  in  general  distinguishes  itself  by  a  preference  for  the 
old  over  the  new.  There  is,  on  the  other  side,  the  party 
that  insists  on  progress,  on  freedom,  on  the  reasonable 
demands  of  the  individual,  on  the  adaptation  of  the 
accepted  order  to  changing  conditions,  and  in  general 
distinguishes  itself  by  a  preference  for  the  new  over  the 
old.  The  first  may  be  called  the  party  of  structure,  and 
the  second  the  party  of  function.  In  England  we  know 
the  adherents  of  one  party  as  Conservatives  and  those  of 
the  other  party  as  Liberals  or  Radicals. 

In  time,  it  is  true,  these  normal  distinctions  between 
the  party  of  structure  and  the  party  of  function  tend  to 
become  somewhat  confused ;  and  it  is  precisely  the 
transition  of  politics  into  the  social  sphere  which  tends 
to  introduce  confusion.  With  a  political  system  which 
proceeds  ultimately  out  of  a  society  with  a  feudalistic 
basis,  the  normal  attitude  of  political  parties  is  long 
maintained.  The  party  of  structure,  the  Conservative 
party,  holds  by  the  ancient  feudalistic  ideals  which  are 
really,  in  the  large  sense,  socialistic,  though  a  socialism 
based  on  a  foundation  of  established  inequality,  and  so 
altogether  unlike  the  democratic  socialism  promulgated 


INDIVIDUALISM    AND    SOCIALISM         383 

to-day.  The  party  of  function,  the  Liberal  party,  insists 
on  the  break-up  of  this  structural  socialism  to  meet  the 
new  needs  of  progressive  civilization.  But  when  feudalism 
has  been  left  far  behind,  and  many  of  the  changes  intro- 
duced by  Liberalism  have  become  part  of  the  social 
structure,  they  fall  under  the  protection  of  Conservatives 
who  are  fighting  against  new  Liberal  innovations.  Thus 
the  lines  of  delimitation  tend  to  become  indistinct. 

In  the  politics  of  social  hygiene  there  are  the  same  two 
factors  :  the  party  of  structure  and  the  party  of  function. 
In  their  nature  and  in  their  opposition  to  each  other 
they  correspond  to  the  two  parties  in  the  old  political  field. 
But  they  have  changed  their  character  and  their  names  : 
the  party  of  structure  is  here  Socialism  or  Collectivism,1 
the  party  of  function  is  Individualism.2  And  while  the 
Tory,  the  Conservative  of  early  days,  was  allied  to 
Collectivism,  and  the  Whig,  the  Liberal  of  early  days,  to 
Individualism,   that   correspondence   has   ceased   to   be 

1  In  the  narrow  sense  Socialism  is  identical  with  the  definite  economic 
doctrine  of  the  Collectivistic  organization  of  the  productive  and 
distributive  work  of  society.  It  also  possesses,  as  Bosanquet  remarks 
(in  an  essay  on  "  Individualism  and  Socialism,"  in  The  Civilization  of 
Christendom),  "  a  deeper  meaning  as  a  name  for  a  human  tendency 
that  is  operative  throughout  history."  Every  Collectivist  is  a  Socialist, 
but  not  every  Socialist  would  admit  that  he  is  a  Collectivist.  "  Moral 
Socialism,"  however,  though  not  identical  with  "  Economic  Socialism," 
tends  to  involve  it. 

-The  term  "  Individualism,"  like  the  term  "  Socialism,"  is  used 
in  varying  senses,  and  is  not,  therefore,  satisfactory  to  everyone.  Thus 
E.  F.  B.  Fell  (The  Foundations  of  Liberty,  1908),  regarding  "  In- 
dividualism "  as  a  merely  negative  term,  prefers  the  term  "  Per- 
sonalism  "  to  denote  a  more  positive  ideal.  There  is,  however,  by  no 
means  any  necessity  to  consider  "  Individualism  "  a  more  negative 
term  than  "  Socialism." 


384        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

invariable  owing  to  the  confused  manner  in  which  the  old 
political  parties  have  nowadays  shifted  their  ground. 
We  may  thus  see  a  Liberal  who  is  a  Collectivist  when  a 
Collectivist  measure  may  involve  that  innovation  to 
secure  adjustment  to  new  needs  which  is  of  the  essence  of 
Liberalism,  and  we  may  see  a  Conservative  who  is  an 
Individualist  when  Individualism  involves  that  main- 
tenance of  the  existing  order  which  is  of  the  essence  of 
Conservatism.  Whether  a  man  is  a  Conservative  or  a 
Liberal,  he  may  incline  either  to  Socialism  or  to  Indivi- 
dualism without  breaking  with  his  political  tradition. 
It  is,  therefore,  impossible  to  import  any  political  animus 
into  the  fundamental  antagonism  between  Individualism 
and  Socialism,  which  prevails  in  the  sphere  of  social 
hygiene. 

We  cannot  hope  to  see  clearly  the  grave  problems 
involved  by  the  fundamental  antagonism  between 
Socialism  and  Individualism  unless  we  understand  what 
each  is  founded  on  and  what  it  is  aiming  at. 

When  we  seek  to  inquire  how  it  is  that  the  Socialist 
ideal  exerts  so  powerful  an  attraction  on  the  human  mind, 
and  why  it  is  ever  seeking  new  modes  of  practical  realiza- 
tion, we  cannot  fail  to  perceive  that  it  ultimately  pro- 
ceeds from  the  primitive  need  of  mutual  help,  a  need 
which  was  felt  long  before  the  appearance  of  humanity.1 
If,  however,  we  keep  strictly  to  our  immediate  mammalian 
traditions  it  may  be  said  that  the  earliest  socialist  com- 

1  The  inspiring  appeal  of  Socialism  to  ardent  minds  is  no  doubt 
ethical.  "  The  ethics  of  Socialism,"  says  Kirkup,  "  are  closely  akin  to 
the  ethics  of  Christianity,  if  not  identical  with  them."  That,  perhaps, 
is  why  Socialism  is  so  attractive  to  some  minds, so  repugnant  to  others. 


INDIVIDUALISM    AND    SOCIALISM         385 

munity  is  the  family,  with  its  trinity  of  father,  mother,  and 
child.  The  primitive  family  constitutes  a  group  which  is 
conditioned  by  the  needs  of  each  member.  Each  in- 
dividual is  subordinated  to  the  whole.  The  infant  needs 
the  mother  and  the  mother  needs  the  infant ;  they  both 
need  the  father  and  the  father  needs  both  for  the  com- 
plete satisfaction  of  his  own  activities.  Socially  and 
economically  this  primitive  group  is  a  unit,  and  if  broken 
up  into  its  individual  parts  these  would  be  liable  to  perish. 

However  we  may  multiply  our  social  unit,  however  we 
may  enlarge  and  elaborate  it,  however  we  may  juggle 
with  the  results,  we  cannot  disguise  the  essential  fact. 
At  the  centre  of  every  social  agglomeration,  however  vast, 
however  small,  lies  the  social  unit  of  the  family  of  which 
each  individual  is  by  himself  either  unable  to  live  or 
unable  to  reproduce,  unable,  that  is  to  say,  to  gratify  the 
two  fundamental  needs  of  hunger  and  love. 

There  are  many  people  who,  while  willing  to  admit 
that  the  family  is,  in  a  sense,  a  composite  social  unit  of 
which  each  part  has  need  of  the  other  parts,  so  that  all 
are  mutually  bound  together,  seek  to  draw  a  firm  line  of 
distinction  between  the  family  and  society.  Family  life, 
they  declare,  is  not  irreconcilable  with  individualism  ;  it 
is  merely  un  egozsme  d  trots.  It  is,  however,  difficult  to 
see  how  such  a  distinction  can  be  maintained,  whether  we 
look  at  the  matter  theoretically  or  practically.  In  a  small 
country  like  Great  Britain,  for  instance,  every  Englishman 
(excluding  new  immigrants)  is  related  by  blood  to  every 
other  Englishman,  as  would  become  clearer  if  every  man 
possessed  his  pedigree  for  a  thousand  years  back.  When 
2  c 


386        THE   TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

we  remember,  further,  also,  that  every  nation  has  been 
overlaid  by  invasions,  warlike  or  peaceful,  from  neigh- 
bouring lands,  and  has,  indeed,  been  originally  formed  in 
this  way  since  no  people  has  sprung  up  out  of  the  soil  of 
its  own  land,  we  must  further  admit  that  the  nations 
themselves  form  one  family  related  by  blood. 

Our  genealogical  relation  to  our  fellows  is  too  remote 
and  extensive  to  concern  us  much  practically  and  senti- 
mentally, though  it  is  well  that  we  should  realize  it.  If 
we  put  it  aside,  we  have  still  to  remember  that  our  actual 
need  of  our  fellows  is  not  definitely  to  be  distinguished 
from  the  mutual  needs  of  the  members  of  the  smallest 
social  unit,  the  family. 

In  practice  the  individual  is  helpless.  Of  all  animals, 
indeed,  man  is  the  most  helpless  when  left  to  himself. 
He  must  be  cared  for  by  others  at  every  moment  during 
his  long  infancy.  He  is  dependent  on  the  exertions  of 
others  for  shelter  and  clothes,  while  others  are  occupied 
in  preparing  his  food  and  conveying  it  from  the  ends  of 
the  world.  Even  if  we  confine  ourselves  to  the  most 
elementary  needs  of  a  moderately  civilized  existence,  or 
even  if  our  requirements  are  only  those  of  an  idiot  in  an 
asylum,  yet,  for  every  one  of  us,  there  are  literally  millions 
of  people  spending  the  best  of  their  lives  from  morning  to 
night  and  perhaps  receiving  but  little  in  return.  The  very 
elementary  need  of  the  individual  in  an  urban  civilization 
for  pure  water  to  drink  can  only  be  attained  by  organized 
social  effort.  The  gigantic  aqueducts  constructed  by  the 
Romans  are  early  monuments  of  social  activity  typical  of 
all  the  rest.  The  primary  needs  of  the  individual  can  only 


INDIVIDUALISM    AND    SOCIALISM  387 

be  supplied  by  an  immense  and  highly  organized  social 
effort.  The  more  complex  civilization  becomes,  and  the 
more  numerous  individual  needs  become,  so  much  the 
more  elaborate  and  highly  organized  becomes  the  social 
response  to  those  needs.  The  individual  is  so  dependent 
on  society  that  he  needs  not  only  the  active  work  of 
others,  but  even  their  mere  passive  good  opinion,  and  if  he 
loses  that  he  is  a  failure,  bankrupt,  a  pauper,  a  lunatic,  a 
criminal,  and  the  social  reaction  against  him  may  suffice 
to  isolate  him,  even  to  put  him  out  of  life  altogether.  So 
dependent  indeed  on  society  is  the  individual  that  there 
has  always  been  a  certain  plausibility  in  the  old  idea  of 
the  Stoics,  countenanced  by  St.  Paul,  and  so  often  revived 
in  later  days  (as  by  Schaffle,  Lilienfeld,  and  Rene  Worms), 
that  society  is  an  organism  in  which  the  individuals  are 
merely  cells  depending  for  their  significance  on  the  whole 
to  which  they  belong.  Just  as  the  animal  is,  as  Hegel, 
the  metaphysician,  called  it,  a  "  nation,"  and  Dareste, 
the  physiologist,  a  "  city,"  made  up  of  cells  which  are 
individuals  having  a  common  ancestor,  so  the  actual 
nation,  the  real  city,  is  an  animal  made  up  of  individuals 
which  are  cells  having  a  common  ancestor,  or,  as  Oken 
long  ago  put  it,  individuals  are  the  organs  of  the  whole.1 
Man  is  a  social  animal  in  constant  action  and  reaction  with 
all  his  fellows  of  the  same  group — a  group  which  becomes 
ever  greater  as  civilization  advances — and  socialism  is 
merely  the  formal  statement  of  this  ultimate  social  fact.2 

1  This  idea  was  elaborated  by  Eimer  in  an  appendix  to  his  Organic 
Evolution  on  the  idea  of  the  individual  in  the  animal  kingdom. 

2  The  term  "  socialism  "  is  said  to  date  from  about  the  year  1835. 
Leroux  claimed  that  he  invented  it,  in  opposition  to  the  term  "  in- 


388        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

There  is   a   divinity   that   hedges  certain  words.     A 
sacred  terror  warns  the  profane  off  them  as  off  something 
that  might  blast  the  beholder's  sight.     In  fact  it  is  so, 
and  even  a  clear-sighted  person  may  be  blinded  by  such 
a  word.     Of  these  words  none  is  more  typical  than  the 
word  "  socialism."     Not  so  very  long  ago  a  prominent 
public  man,  of  high  intelligence,  but  evidently  susceptible 
to  the  terror-striking  influence  of  words,  went  to  Glasgow 
to  deliver  an  address  on  Social  Reform.    He  warned  his 
hearers  against  Socialism,  and  told  them  that,  though  so 
much  talked  about,  it  had  not  made  one  inch  of  progress  ; 
of  practical  Socialism  or  Collectivism  there  were  no  signs 
at  all.    Yet,  as  some  of  his  hearers  pointed  out,  he  gave 
his  address  in  a  municipally  owned  hall,  illuminated  by 
municipal    lights,    to    an    audience   which    had   largely 
arrived  in  municipal  tramcars  travelling  through  streets 
owned,   maintained,  and  guarded  by  the  municipality. 
This  audience  was  largely  educated  in  State  schools,  in 
which  their  children  nowadays  can  receive  not  only  free 
education  and  free  books,  but,  if  necessary,  free  food  and 
free  medical  inspection  and  treatment.     Moreover,  the 
members  of  this  same  audience  thus  assured  of  the  non- 
existence of  Socialism,  are  entitled  to  free  treatment  in 
the  municipal  hospital,  should  an  infective  disease  over- 
take them  ;    the  municipality  provides  them  freely  with 
concerts  and  picture  galleries,  golf  courses  and  swimming 
ponds  ;    and  in  old  age,  finally,  if  duly  qualified,  they 

dividualism,"  but  at  that  period  it  had  become  so  necessary  and  so 
obvious  a  term  that  it  is  difficult  to  say  positively  by  whom  it  was 
first  used. 


INDIVIDUALISM    AND    SOCIALISM         389 

receive  a  State  pension.  Now  all  these  measures  are 
socialistic,  and  Socialism  is  nothing  more  or  less  than  a 
complicated  web  of  such  measures  ;  the  socialistic  State, 
as  some  have  put  it,  is  simply  a  great  national  co-opera- 
tive association  of  which  the  Government  is  the  board  of 
managers. 

It  is  said  by  some  who  disclaim  any  tendency  to 
Socialism,  that  what  they  desire  is  not  the  State-owner- 
ship of  the  means  of  production,  but  State-regulation. 
Let  the  State,  in  the  interests  of  the  community,  keep  a 
firm  control  over  the  individualistic  exploitation  of 
capital,  let  it  tax  capital  as  far  as  may  be  desirable  in  the 
interests  of  the  community.  But  beyond  this,  capital, 
as  well  as  land,  is  sacred.  The  distinction  thus  assumed 
is  not,  however,  valid.  The  very  people  who  make  this 
distinction  are  often  enthusiastic  advocates  of  an  enlarged 
navy  and  a  more  powerful  army.  Yet  these  can  only  be 
provided  by  taxation,  and  every  tax  in  a  democratic 
State  is  a  socialistic  measure,  and  involves  collective 
ownership  of  the  proceeds,  whether  they  are  applied  to 
making  guns  or  swimming-baths.  Every  step  in  the 
regulation  of  industry  assumes  the  rights  of  society  over 
individualistic  production,  and  is  therefore  socialistic. 
It  is  a  question  of  less  or  more,  but  except  along  those  two 
lines,  there  is  no  socialism  at  all  to  be  reckoned  with  in  the 
practical  affairs  of  the  world.  That  revolutionary  social- 
ism of  the  dogmatically  systematic  school  of  Karl  Marx 
which  desired  to  transfer  society  at  a  single  stroke  by 
taking  over  and  centralizing  all  the  means  of  production 
may  now  be  regarded  as  a  dream.    It  never  at  any  time 


390        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

took  root  in  the  English-speaking  lands,  though  it  was 
advocated  with  unwearying  patience  by  men  of  such 
force  of  intellect  and  of  character  as  Mr.  Hyndman  and 
William  Morris.  Even  in  Germany,  the  land  of  its  origin, 
nearly  all  its  old  irreconcilable  leaders  are  dead,  and  it  is 
now  slowly  but  steadily  losing  influence,  to  give  place 
to  a  more  modern  and  practical  socialism. 

As  we  are  concerned  with  it  to-day  and  in  the  future, 
Socialism  is  not  a  rigid  economic  theory,  nor  is  it  the 
creed  of  a  narrow  sect.  In  its  wide  sense  it  is  a  name  that 
covers  all  the  activities — first  instinctive,  then  organized 
— which  arise  out  of  the  fundamental  fact  that  man  is  a 
social  animal.  In  its  more  precise  sense  it  indicates  the 
various  orderly  measures  that  are  taken  by  groups  of 
individuals — whether  States  or  municipalities — to  provide 
collectively  for  the  definite  needs  of  the  individuals  com- 
posing the  group.    So  much  for  Socialism. 

The  individualist  has  a  very  different  story  to  tell. 
From  the  point  of  view  of  Individualism,  however  elabor- 
ate the  structure  of  the  society  you  erect,  it  can  only, 
after  all,  be  built  up  of  individuals,  and  its  whole  worth 
must  depend  on  the  quality  of  those  individuals.  If  they 
are  not  fully  developed  and  finely  tempered  by  high 
responsibilities  and  perpetual  struggles,  all  social  effort 
is  fruitless,  it  will  merely  degrade  the  individual  to  the 
helpless  position  of  a  parasite.  The  individual  is  born 
alone  ;  he  must  die  alone  ;  his  deepest  passions,  his  most 
exquisite  tastes,  are  personal ;  in  this  world,  or  in  any 
other  world,  all  the  activities  of  society  cannot  suffice  to 
save  his  soul.    Thus  it  is  that  the  individual  must  bear 


INDIVIDUALISM    AND    SOCIALISM         391 

his  own  burdens,  for  it  is  only  in  so  doing  that  the  muscles 
of  his  body  grow  strong  and  that  the  energies  of  his  spirit 
become  keen.  It  is  by  the  qualities  of  the  individual 
alone  that  work  is  sound  and  that  initiative  is  possible. 
All  trade  and  commerce,  every  practical  affair  of  life, 
depend  for  success  on  the  personal  ability  of  indi- 
viduals.1 It  is  not  only  so  in  the  everyday  affairs  of  life, 
it  is  even  more  so  on  the  highest  planes  of  intellectual 
and  spiritual  life.  The  supreme  great  men  of  the  race 
were  termed  by  Carlyle  its  "  heroes,"  by  Emerson  its 
"  representative  men,"  but,  equally  by  the  less  and  by 
the  more  democratic  term,  they  are  always  individuals 
standing  apart  from  society,  often  in  violent  opposition 
to  it,  though  they  have  always  conquered  in  the  end. 
When  any  great  person  has  stood  alone  against  the  world 
it  has  always  been  the  world  that  lost.     The  strongest 

1  An  important  point  which  the  Individualist  may  fairly  bring  for- 
ward in  this  connection  is  the  tendency  of  Socialism  to  repress  the  energy 
of  the  best  worker  among  its  officials  at  the  expense  of  the  public.  Alike  in 
government  offices  at  Whitehall  and  in  municipal  offices  in  the  town  halls 
there  is  a  certain  proportion  of  workers  who  find  pleasure  in  putting 
forth  their  best  energies  at  high  pressure.  But  the  majority  take  care 
that  work  shall  be  carried  on  at  low  pressure,  and  that  the  output  shall 
not  exceed  a  certain  understood  minimum.  They  ensure  this  by  making 
things  uncomfortable  for  the  workers  who  exceed  that  minimum. 
The  gravity  of  this  evil  is  scarcely  yet  realized.  It  could  probably  be 
counteracted  by  so  organizing  promotion  that  the  higher  posts  really 
went  to  the  officials  distinguished  by  the  quantity  and  the  quality  of 
their  work.  Pensions  should  also  be  affected  by  the  same  consideration. 
In  any  case,  the  evil  is  serious,  and  is  becoming  more  so  since  the  number 
of  public  officials  is  constantly  increasing.  The  Council  of  the  Law 
Society  found  some  years  ago  that  the  cost  of  civil  administration  in 
England  had  increased  between  the  years  1894  and  1904  from  19 
millions  to  25  millions,  and,  excluding  the  Revenue  Departments, 
it  is  now  said  to  have  gone  up  to  42  millions.  It  is  an  evil  that  will 
have  to  be  dealt  with  sooner  or  later. 


392        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

man,  as  Ibsen  argued  in  his  Enemy  of  the  People,  is  the 
man  who  stands  most  alone.  "  He  will  be  the  greatest," 
says  Nietzsche  in  Beyond  Good  and  Evil,  "  who  can  be 
the  most  solitary,  the  most  concealed,  the  most  diver- 
gent." Every  great  and  vitally  organized  person  is 
hostile  to  the  rigid  and  narrow  routine  of  social  conven- 
tions, whether  established  by  law  or  by  opinion  ;  they 
must  ever  be  broken  to  suit  his  vital  needs.  Therefore 
the  more  we  multiply  these  social  routines,  the  more 
strands  we  weave  into  the  social  web,  the  more  closely  we 
draw  them,  by  so  much  the  more  we  are  discouraging  the 
production  of  great  and  vitally  organized  persons,  and  by 
so  much  the  more  we  are  exposing  society  to  destruction 
at  the  hands  of  such  persons. 

Beneath  Socialism  lies  the  assertion  that  society  came 
first  and  that  individuals  are  indefinitely  apt  for  education 
into  their  place  in  society.  Socialism  has  inherited  the 
maxim,  which  Rousseau,  the  uncompromising  Indivi- 
dualist, placed  at  the  front  of  his  Social  Contract :  "  Man 
is  born  free,  and  everywhere  he  is  in  chains."  There  is 
nothing  to  be  done  but  to  strike  off  the  chains  and 
organize  society  on  a  social  basis.  Men  are  not  this  or 
that ;  they  are  what  they  have  been  made.  Make  the 
social  conditions  right,  says  the  thorough-going  Socialist, 
and  individuals  will  be  all  that  we  could  desire  them  to  be. 
Not  poverty  alone,  but  disease,  lunacy,  prostitution, 
criminality  are  all  the  results  of  bad  social  and  economic 
conditions.  Create  the  right  environment  and  you  have 
done  all  that  is  necessary.  To  some  extent  that  is  clearly 
true.    But  the  individualist  insists  that  there  are  definite 


INDIVIDUALISM    AND    SOCIALISM         393 

limits  to  its  truth.  Even  in  the  most  favourable  environ- 
ment nearly  every  ill  that  the  Socialist  seeks  to  remove 
is  found.  Inevitably,  the  Individualist  declares,  because 
we  do  not  spring  out  of  our  environment,  but  out  of  our 
ancestral  stocks.  Against  the  stress  on  environment,  the 
Individualist  lays  the  stress  on  the  ascertained  facts  of 
heredity.  It  is  the  individual  that  counts,  and  for  good  or 
for  ill  the  individual  brought  his  fate  with  him  at  birth. 
Ensure  the  production  of  sound  individuals,  and  you  may 
set  at  naught  the  environment.  You  will,  indeed,  secure 
results  incomparably  better  than  even  the  most  anxious 
care  expended  on  environment  alone  can  ever  hope  to 
secure. 

Such  are  the  respective  attitudes  of  Socialism  and 
Individualism.  So  far  as  I  can  see,  they  are  both  ab- 
solutely right.  Nor  is  it  even  clear  that  they  are  really 
opposed  ;  for,  as  happens  in  every  field,  while  the  affirma- 
tions of  each  are  sound,  their  denials  are  unsound.  Cer- 
tainly, along  each  line  we  may  be  carried  to  absurdity. 
The  Individualism  of  Max  Stirner  is  not  far  from  the 
ultimate  frontier  of  sanity,  and  possibly  even  on  the 
other  side  of  it  ;  *  while  the  Socialism  of  the  Oneida 
Community  involved  a  self-subordination  which  it  would 
be  idle  to  expect  from  the  majority  of  men  and  women. 
But  there  is  a  perfect  division  of  labour  between  Socialism 
and  Individualism.    We  cannot  have  too  much  of  either 

1  Max  Stirner  wrote  his  work,  Der  Einzige  und  sein  Eigenthum  (The 
Ego  and  His  Own,  in  the  English  translation  of  Byington),  in  1845. 
His  life  has  been  written  by  John  Henry  Mackay  (Max  Stirner  :  Sein 
Leben  und  Sein  Werk),  and  an  interesting  study  of  Max  Stirner  (whose 
real  name  was  Schmidt)  will  be  found  in  James  Huneker's  Egoists. 


394     THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

of  them.  We  have  only  to  remember  that  the  field  of  each 
is  distinct.  No  one  needs  Individualism  in  his  water 
supply,  and  no  one  needs  Socialism  in  his  religion.  All 
human  affairs  sort  themselves  out  as  coming  within  the 
province  of  Socialism  or  of  Individualism,  and  each  may 
be  pushed  to  its  furthest  extreme.1 

It  so  happens,  however,  that  the  capacity  of  the  human 
brain  is  limited,  and  a  single  brain  is  not  made  to  hold 

1  In  the  introduction  to  my  earliest  book,  The  New  Spirit  (1889), 
I  set  forth  this  position,  from  which  I  have  never  departed  :  ' '  While 
we  are  socializing  all  those  things  of  which  all  have  equal  common  need, 
we  are  more  and  more  tending  to  leave  to  the  individual  the  control 
of  those  things  which  in  our  complex  civilization  constitute  individu- 
ality. We  socialize  what  we  call  our  physical  life  in  order  that  we  may 
attain  greater  freedom  for  what  we  call  our  spiritual  life."  No  doubt 
such  a  point  of  view  was  implicit  in  Ruskin  and  other  previous  writers, 
just  as  it  has  subsequently  been  set  forth  by  Ellen  Key  and  others, 
while  from  the  economic  side  it  has  been  well  formulated  by  Mr.  J.  A. 
Hobson  in  his  Evolution  of  Capital :  "  The  very  raison  d'etre  of  increased 
social  cohesiveness  is  to  economize  and  enrich  the  individual  life,  and 
to  enable  the  play  of  individual  energy  to  assume  higher  forms  out  of 
which  more  individual  satisfaction  may  accrue."  "  Socialism  will 
be  of  value,"  thought  Oscar  Wilde  in  his  Soul  of  Man,  "  simply 
because  it  will  lead  to  Individualism."  "  Socialism  denies  economic 
Individualism  for  any,"  says  Karl  Notzel  (  "  Zur  Ethischen  Begrundung 
des  Sozialismus,"  Sozialistische  Monatshefte,  1910,  Heft  23),  "  in  order 
to  make  moral  intellectual  Individualism  possible  for  all."  And  as  it 
has  been  seen  that  Socialism  leads  to  Individualism,  so  it  has  also  been 
seen  that  Individualism,  even  on  the  ethical  plane,  leads  to  Socialism. 
"  You  must  let  the  individual  make  his  will  a  reality  in  the  conduct  of 
his  life,"  Bosanquet  remarks  in  anessay  already  quoted,  "  in  order  that 
it  may  be  possible  for  him  consciously  to  entertain  the  social  purpose 
as  a  constituent  of  his  will.  Without  these  conditions  there  is  no 
social  organism  and  no  moral  Socialism.  .  .  .  Each  unit  of  the  social 
organism  has  to  embody  his  relations  with  the  whole  in  his  own  par- 
ticular work  and  will  ;  and  in  order  to  do  this  the  individual  must  have 
a  strength  and  depth  in  himself  proportional  to  and  consisting  of  the 
relations  which  he  has  to  embody."  Grant  Allen  long  since  clearly 
set  forth  the  harmony  between  Individualism  and  Socialism  in  an 
article  published  in  the  Contemporary  Review  in  1879. 


INDIVIDUALISM    AND    SOCIALISM        395 

together  the  idea  of  Socialism  and  the  idea  of  Individual- 
ism. Ordinary  people  have,  it  is  true,  no  practical 
difficulty  whatever  in  acting  concurrently  in  accordance 
with  the  ideas  of  Socialism  and  of  Individualism.  But  it 
is  different  with  the  men  of  ideas  ;  they  must  either  be 
Socialists  or  Individualists  ;  they  cannot  be  both.  The 
tendency  in  one  or  the  other  direction  is  probably  inborn 
in  these  men  of  ideas. 

We  need  not  regret  this  inevitable  division  of  labour. 
On  the  contrary,  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  the  right  result 
could  otherwise  be  brought  about.  People  without  ideas 
experience  no  difficulty  in  harmonizing  the  two  tendencies. 
But  if  the  ideas  of  Socialism  and  Individualism  tended  to 
appear  in  the  same  brain  they  would  neutralize  each  other 
or  lead  action  into  an  unprofitable  via  media.  The 
separate  initiative  and  promulgation  of  the  two  tendencies 
encourages  a  much  more  effective  action,  and  best  pro- 
motes that  final  harmony  of  the  two  extremes  which  the 
finest  human  development  needs. 

There  is  more  to  be  said.  Not  only  are  both  alike 
indispensable,  and  both  too  profoundly  rooted  in  human 
nature  to  be  abolished  or  abridged,  but  each  is  indis- 
pensable to  the  other.  There  can  be  no  Socialism  without 
Individualism  ;  there  can  be  no  Individualism  without 
Socialism.  Only  a  very  fine  development  of  personal 
character  and  individual  responsibility  can  bear  up  any 
highly  elaborated  social  organization,  which  is  why  small 
Socialist  communities  have  only  attained  success  by 
enlisting  finely  selected  persons  ;  only  a  highly  organized 
social  structure  can  afford  scope  for  the  play  of  indi- 


396        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

viduality.  The  enlightened  Socialist  nowadays  often 
realizes  something  of  the  relationship  of  Socialism  to 
Individualism,  and  the  Individualist — if  he  were  not  in 
recent  times,  for  all  his  excellent  qualities,  sometimes 
lacking  in  mental  flexibility  and  alertness — would  be 
prepared  to  admit  his  own  relationship  to  Socialism. 
"  The  organization  of  the  whole  is  dominated  by  the 
necessities  of  cellular  life,"  as  Dareste  says.  That  truth 
is  well  recognized  by  the  physiologists  since  the  days  of 
Claude  Bernard.  It  is  absolutely  true  of  the  physiology 
of  society.  Social  organization  is  not  for  the  purpose  of 
subordinating  the  individual  to  society  ;  it  is  as  much 
for  the  purpose  of  subordinating  society  to  the  in- 
dividual. 

Between  individuals,  even  the  greatest,  and  society 
there  is  perpetual  action  and  reaction.  While  the  indi- 
vidual powerfully  acts  on  society,  he  can  only  so  act 
in  so  far  as  he  is  himself  the  instrument  and  organ  of 
society.  The  individual  leads  society,  but  only  in  that 
direction  whither  society  wishes  to  go.  Every  man  of 
science  merely  carries  knowledge  or  invention  one  further 
step,  a  needed  and  desired  step,  beyond  the  stage  reached 
by  his  immediate  predecessors.  Every  poet  and  artist  is 
only  giving  expression  to  the  secret  feelings  and  impulses 
of  his  fellows.  He  has  the  courage  to  utter  for  the  first 
time  the  intimate  emotion  and  aspiration  which  he  finds 
in  the  depth  of  his  own  soul,  and  he  has  the  skill  to  express 
them  in  forms  of  radiant  beauty.  But  all  these  secret 
feelings  and  desires  are  in  the  hearts  of  other  men,  who 
have  not  the  boldness  to  tell  them  nor  the  ability  to 


INDIVIDUALISM    AND    SOCIALISM         397 

embody  them  exquisitely.  In  the  life  of  man,  as  in 
nature  generally,  there  is  a  perpetual  process  of  exfolia- 
tion, as  Edward  Carpenter  calls  it,  whereby  a  latent  but 
striving  desire  is  revealed,  and  the  man  of  genius  is  the 
stimulus  and  the  incarnation  of  this  exfoliating  move- 
ment. That  is  why  every  great  poet  and  artist  when  once 
his  message  becomes  intelligible,  is  acclaimed  and  adored 
by  the  crowd  for  whom  he  would  only  have  been  an 
object  of  idle  wonderment  if  he  had  not  expressed  and 
glorified  themselves.  When  the  man  of  genius  is  too  far 
ahead  of  his  time,  he  is  rejected,  however  great  his  genius 
may  be,  because  he  represents  the  individual  out  of  vital 
relation  to  his  time.  A  Roger  Bacon,  for  all  his  stupen- 
dous intellect,  is  deprived  of  pen  and  paper  and  shut  up 
in  a  monastery,  because  he  is  undertaking  to  answer 
questions  which  will  not  be  asked  until  five  centuries 
after  his  death.  Perhaps  the  supreme  man  of  genius  is  he 
who,  like  Virgil,  Leonardo,  or  Shakespeare,  has  a  message 
for  his  own  time  and  a  message  for  all  times,  a  mes- 
sage which  is  for  ever  renewed  for  every  new  genera- 
tion. 

The  need  for  insisting  on  the  intimate  relations  between 
Socialism  and  Individualism  has  become  the  more  urgent 
to-day  because  we  are  reaching  a  stage  of  civilization  in 
which  each  tendency  is  inevitably  so  pushed  to  its  full 
development  that  a  clash  is  only  prevented  by  the 
realization  that  here  we  have  truly  a  harmony.  Some- 
times a  matter  that  belongs  to  one  sphere  is  so  closely 
intertwined  with  a  matter  that  belongs  to  the  other  that 


398        THE   TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

it  is  a  very  difficult  problem  how  to  hold  them  separate 
and  allow  each  its  due  value.1 

At  times,  indeed,  it  is  really  very  difficult  to  determine 
to  which  sphere  a  particular  kind  of  human  activity 
belongs.  This  is  notably  the  case  as  regards  education. 
"  Render  unto  Caesar  the  things  that  be  Caesar's,  and  unto 
God  the  things  that  be  God's."  But  is  education  among 
the  things  that  belong  to  Caesar,  to  social  organization, 
or  among  the  things  that  belong  to  God,  to  the  province 
of  the  individual's  soul  ?  There  is  much  to  be  said  on 
both  sides.  Of  late  the  Socialist  tendency  prevails  here, 
and  there  is  a  disposition  to  standardize  rigidly  an  educa- 
tion so  superficial,  so  platitudinous,  so  uniform,  so  un- 
profitable— so  fatally  oblivious  of  what  even  the  word 
education  means2 — that  some  day,  perhaps,  the  revolted 
Individualist  spirit  will  arise  in  irresistible  might  to  sweep 
away  the  whole  worthless  structure  from  top  to  bottom, 
with  even  such  possibilities  of  good  as  it  may  conceal. 
The  educationalists  of  to-day  may  do  well  to  remember 
that  it  is  wise  to  be  generous  to  your  enemies  even  in 
the  interests  of  your  own  preservation. 

1  An  instructive  illustration  is  furnished  by  the  question  of  the 
relation  of  the  sexes,  and  elsewhere  (Studies  in  the  Psychology  of  Sex, 
Vol.  VI,  "  Sex  in  Relation  to  Society  ")  I  have  sought  to  show  that 
we  must  distinguish  between  marriage,  which  is  directly  the  affair  of 
the  individuals  primarily  concerned,  and  procreation,  which  is  mainly 
the  concern  of  society. 

2  See,  for  instance,  the  opinion  of  the  former  Chief  Inspector  of 
Elementary  Schools  in  England,  Mr.  Edmond  Holmes,  What  Is  and 
What  Might  Be  (191 1).  He  points  out  that  true  education  must  be 
"  self-realization,"  and  that  the  present  system  of  "  education  "  is 
entirely  opposed  to  self-realization.  Sir  John  Gorst,  again,  has  re- 
peatedly attacked  the  errors  of  the  English  State  system  of  education. 


INDIVIDUALISM    AND    SOCIALISM         399 

In  every  age  the  question  of  Individualism  and  Social- 
ism takes  on  a  different  form.  In  our  own  age  it  has 
become  acute  under  the  form  of  a  conflict  between  the 
advocates  of  good  heredity  and  the  advocates  of  good 
environment.  On  the  one  hand  there  is  the  desire  to 
breed  the  individual  to  a  high  degree  of  efficiency  by 
eugenic  selection,  favouring  good  stocks  and  making  the 
procreation  of  bad  stocks  more  difficult.  On  the  other 
hand  there  is  the  effort  so  to  organize  the  environment 
by  collectivist  methods  that  life  for  all  may  become  easy 
and  wholesome.  As  usual,  those  who  insist  on  the  im- 
portance of  good  environment  are  inclined  to  consider 
that  the  question  of  heredity  may  be  left  to  itself,  and 
those  who  insist  on  the  importance  of  good  heredity  are 
indifferent  to  environment.  As  usual,  also,  there  is  a  real 
underlying  harmony  of  those  two  demands.  There  is, 
however,  here  more  than  this.  In  this  most  modern  of 
their  embodiments,  Socialism  and  Individualism  are  not 
merely  harmonious,  each  is  the  key  to  the  other,  which 
remains  unattainable  without  it.  However  carefully  we 
improve  our  breed,  however  anxiously  we  guard  the 
entrance  to  life,  our  labour  will  be  in  vain  if  we  neglect 
to  adapt  the  environment  to  the  fine  race  we  are  breeding. 
The  best  individuals  are  not  the  toughest,  any  more  than 
the  highest  species  are  the  toughest,  but  rather,  indeed, 
the  reverse,  and  no  creature  needs  so  much  and  so  pro- 
longed an  environing  care  as  man,  to  ensure  his  survival. 
On  the  other  hand,  an  elaborate  attention  to  the  environ- 
ment, combined  with  a  reckless  inattention  to  the  quality 
of  the  individuals  born  to  live  in  that  environment  can 


4oo        THE   TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

only  lead  to  an  overburdened  social  organization  which 
will  speedily  fall  by  its  own  weight. 

During  the  past  century  the  Socialists  of  the  school  for 
bettering  the  environment  have  for  the  most  part  had  the 
game  in  their  own  hands.  They  founded  themselves  on 
the  very  reasonable  basis  of  sympathy,  a  basis  which 
the  eighteenth-century  moralists  had  prepared,  which 
Schopenhauer  had  formulated,  which  George  Eliot  had 
passionately  preached,  which  had  around  its  operations 
the  immense  prestige  of  the  gospel  of  Jesus.  The  en- 
vironmental Socialists — always  quite  reasonably — set 
themselves  to  improve  the  conditions  of  labour  ;  they 
provided  local  relief  for  the  poor  ;  they  built  hospitals 
for  the  free  treatment  of  the  sick.  They  are  proceeding  to 
feed  school  children,  to  segregate  and  protect  the  feeble- 
minded, to  insure  the  unemployed,  to  give  State  pensions 
to  the  aged,  and  they  are  even  asked  to  guarantee  work 
for  all.  Now  these  things,  and  the  likes  of  them,  are  not 
only  in  accordance  with  natural  human  impulses,  but 
for  the  most  part  they  are  reasonable,  and  in  protecting 
the  weak  the  strong  are,  in  a  certain  sense,  protecting 
themselves.  No  one  nowadays  wants  the  hungry  to 
hunger  or  the  suffering  to  suffer.  Indeed,  in  that  sense, 
there  never  has  been  any  laissez-faire  school.1 

1  The  phrase  Laissez  faire  is  sometimes  used  as  though  it  were  the 
watchword  of  a  party  which  graciously  accorded  a  free  hand  to  the 
Devil  to  do  his  worst.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  was  simply  a  phrase 
adopted  by  the  French  economists  of  the  eighteenth  century  to  sum- 
marize the  conclusion  of  their  arguments  against  the  antiquated 
restrictions  which  were  then  stifling  the  trade  and  commerce  of  France 
(see  G.  Weuleresse,  Le  Mouvement  Physiocratique  en  France,  iqio, 
Vol.  II,  p.  17).  Properly  understood,  it  is  not  a  maxim  which  any 
party  need  be  ashamed  to  own. 


INDIVIDUALISM    AND    SOCIALISM         401 

But  as  the  movement  of  environmental  Socialism 
realizes  itself,  it  becomes  increasingly  clear  that  it  is  itself 
multiplying  the  work  which  it  sets  itself  to  do.  In  enabling 
the  weak,  the  incompetent,  and  the  defective  to  live  and 
to  live  comfortably,  it  makes  it  easier  for  those  on  the 
borderland  of  these  classes  to  fall  into  them,  and  it  fur- 
nishes the  conditions  which  enable  them  to  propagate 
their  like,  and  to  do  this,  moreover,  without  that  prudent 
limitation  which  is  now  becoming  universal  in  all  classes 
above  those  of  the  weak,  the  incompetent,  and  the  defec- 
tive. Thus  unchecked  environmental  Socialism,  obeying 
natural  impulses  and  seeking  legitimate  ends,  would  be 
drawn  into  courses  at  the  end  of  which  only  social  en- 
feeblement,  perhaps  even  dissolution,  could  be  seen. 

The  key  to  the  situation,  it  is  now  beginning  to  be 
more  and  more  widely  felt,  is  to  be  found  in  the  counter- 
balancing tendency  of  Individualism,  and  the  eugenic 
guardianship  of  the  race.  Not,  rightly  understood,  as  a 
method  of  arresting  environmental  Socialism,  nor  even 
as  a  counterblast  to  its  gospel  of  sympathy.  Nietzsche, 
indeed,  has  made  a  famous  assault  on  sympathy,  as  he 
has  on  conventional  morality  generally,  but  his  "  im- 
moralism  "  in  general  and  his  "  hardness  "  in  particular 
are  but  new  and  finer  manifestations  of  those  faded 
virtues  he  was  really  seeking  to  revive.  The  superficially 
sympathetic  man  flings  a  coin  to  the  beggar  ;  the  more 
deeply  sympathetic  man  builds  an  almshouse  for  him  so 
that  he  need  no  longer  beg ;  but  perhaps  the  most 
radically  sympathetic  of  all  is  the  man  who  arranges  that 
the  beggar  shall  not  be  born. 
2  D 


402        THE    TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

So  it  is  that  the  question  of  breed,  the  production  of  fine 
individuals,  the  elevation  of  the  ideal  of  quality  in  human 
production  over  that  of  mere  quantity,  begins  to  be  seen, 
not  merely  as  a  noble  ideal  in  itself,  but  as  the  only 
method  by  which  Socialism  can  be  enabled  to  continue  on 
its  present  path.  If  the  entry  into  life  is  conceded  more 
freely  to  the  weak,  the  incompetent,  and  the  defective 
than  to  the  strong,  the  efficient,  and  the  sane,  then  a 
Sisyphean  task  is  imposed  on  society  ;  for  every  burden 
lifted  two  more  burdens  appear.  But  as  individual 
responsibility  becomes  developed,  as  we  approach  the 
time  to  which  Galton  looked  forward,  when  the  eugenic 
care  for  the  race  may  become  a  religion,  then  social  con- 
trol over  the  facts  of  life  becomes  possible.  Through  the 
slow  growth  of  knowledge  concerning  hereditary  condi- 
tions, by  voluntary  self-restraint,  by  the  final  disappear- 
ance of  the  lingering  prejudice  against  the  control  of 
procreation,  by  sterilization  in  special  cases,  by  methods 
of  pressure  which  need  not  amount  to  actual  compulsion,1 
it  will  be  possible  to  attain  an  increasingly  firm  grip  on 
the  evil  elements  of  heredity.  Not  until  such  measures  as 
these,  under  the  controlling  influence  of  a  sense  of  per- 
sonal responsibility  extending  to  every  member  of  the 

1  I  would  again  repeat  that  I  do  not  regard  legislation  as  a  channel 
of  true  eugenic  reform.  As  Bateson  well  says  (op.  cit.  p.  15)  :  "  It  is 
not  the  tyrannical  and  capricious  interference  of  a  half-informed 
majority  which  can  safely  mould  or  purify  a  population,  but  rather 
that  simplification  of  instinct  for  which  we  ever  hope,  which  fuller  know- 
ledge alone  can  make  possible."  Even  the  subsidising  of  unexceptionable 
parents,  as  the  same  writer  remarks,  cannot  be  viewed  with  enthusiasm. 
"If  we  picture  to  ourselves  the  kind  of  persons  who  would  infallibly 
be  chosen  as  examples  of  '  civic  worth '  the  prospect  is  not  very 
attractive." 


INDIVIDUALISM    AND    SOCIALISM         403 

community,  have  long  been  put  into  practice,  can  we  hope 
to  see  man  on  the  earth  risen  to  his  full  stature,  healthy 
in  body,  noble  in  spirit,  beautiful  in  both  alike,  moving 
spaciously  and  harmoniously  among  his  fellows  in  the 
great  world  of  Nature,  to  which  he  is  so  subtly  adapted 
because  he  has  himself  sprung  out  of  it  and  is  its  most 
exquisite  flower.  At  this  final  point  social  hygiene 
becomes  one  with  the  hygiene  of  the  soul.1 

Poets  and  prophets,  from  Jesus  and  Paul  to  Novalis 
and  Whitman,  have  seen  the  divine  possibilities  of  Man. 
There  is  no  temple  in  the  world,  they  seem  to  say,  so  great 
as  the  human  body  ;  he  comes  in  contact  with  Heaven, 
they  declare,  who  touches  a  human  person.  But  these 
human  things,  made  to  be  gods,  have  spawned  like  frogs 
over  all  the  earth.  Everywhere  they  have  beslimed  its 
purity  and  befouled  its  beauty,  darkening  the  very  sun- 
shine. Heaped  upon  one  another  in  evil  masses,  preying 
upon  one  another  as  no  other  creature  has  ever  preyed 
upon  its  kind,  they  have  become  a  festering  heap  which 
all  the  oceans  in  vain  lave  with  their  antiseptic  waters, 
and  all  the  winds  of  heaven  cannot  purify.  It  is  only 
in  the  unextinguished  spark  of  reason  within  him  that 
salvation  for  man  may  ever  be  found,  in  the  realization 

1  "  Aristotle,  herein  the  organ  and  exponent  of  the  Greek  national 
mind,"  remarks  Gomperz,  "  understood  by  the  hygiene  of  the  soul 
the  avoidance  of  all  extremes,  the  equilibrium  of  the  powers,  the 
harmonious  development  of  aptitudes,  none  of  which  is  allowed  to 
starve  or  paralyse  the  others."  Gomperz  points  out  that  this  in- 
dividual morality  corresponded  to  the  characteristics  of  the  Greek 
national  religion — its  inclusiveness  and  spaciousness,  its  freedom  and 
serenity,  its  ennoblement  alike  of  energetic  action  and  passive  enjoy- 
ment (Gomperz,  Greek  Thinkers,  Eng.  Trans.,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  13). 


404        THE   TASK    OF    SOCIAL    HYGIENE 

that  he  is  his  own  star,  and  carries  in  his  hands  his  own 
fate.  The  impulses  of  Individualism  and  of  Socialism 
alike  prompt  us  to  gain  self-control  and  to  learn  the  vast 
extent  of  our  responsibility.  The  whole  of  humanity  is 
working  for  each  of  us  ;  each  of  us  must  live  worthy  of 
that  great  responsibility  to  humanity.  By  how  fine  a  flash 
of  insight  Jesus  declared  that  few  could  enter  the  Kingdom 
of  Heaven  !  Not  until  the  earth  is  purified  of  untold 
millions  of  its  population  will  it  ever  become  the  Heaven 
of  old  dreamers,  in  which  the  elect  walk  spaciously  and 
nobly,  loving  one  another.  Only  in  such  spacious  and 
pure  air  is  it  possible  for  the  individual  to  perfect  himself, 
as  a  rose  becomes  perfect,  according  to  Dante's  beautiful 
simile,1  in  order  that  he  may  spread  abroad  for  others  the 
fragrance  that  has  been  generated  within  him.  If  one 
thinks  of  it,  that  seems  a  truism,  yet,  even  in  this 
twentieth  century,  how  few,  how  very  few,  there  are 
who  know  it  ! 

This  is  why  we  cannot  have  too  much  Individualism, 
we  cannot  have  too  much  Socialism.  They  play  into  each 
other's  hands.  To  strengthen  one  is  to  give  force  to  the 
other.  The  greater  the  vigour  of  both,  the  more  vitally 
a  society  is  progressing.  "  I  can  no  more  call  myself  an 
Individualist  or  a  Socialist,"  said  Henry  George,  "  than 
one  who  considers  the  forces  by  which  the  planets  are  held 
to  their  orbits  could  call  himself  a  centrifugalist  or  a 
centripetalist."  To  attain  a  society  in  which  Indivi- 
dualism and  Socialism  are  each  carried  to  its  extreme 
point  would  be  to  attain  to  the  society  that  lived  in  the 

1  Convilo,  IV,  27. 


INDIVIDUALISM    AND    SOCIALISM         405 

Abbey  of  Thelema,  in  the  City  of  the  Sun,  in  Utopia,  in 
the  land  of  Zarathustra,  in  the  Garden  of  Eden,  in  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven.  It  is  a  kingdom,  no  doubt,  that  is, 
as  Diderot  expressed  it,  "  diablement  ideal."  But  to-day 
we  hold  in  our  hands  more  certainly  than  ever  before  the 
clues  that  were  imperfectly  foreshadowed  by  Plato,  and 
what  our  fathers  sought  ignorantly  we  may  attempt  by 
methods  according  to  knowledge.  No  Utopia  was  ever 
realized  ;  and  the  ideal  is  a  mirage  that  must  ever  elude 
us  or  it  would  cease  to  be  ideal.  Yet  all  our  progress,  if 
progress  there  be,  can  only  lie  in  setting  our  faces  towards 
that  goal  to  which  Utopias  and  ideals  point. 


THE   END 


INDEX 

(The  Names  of  Authors  quoted  are  italicized.) 


Abortion,  facultative,  99 

Age  of  consent,  288  et  seq. 

Aggeneration,  24 

Alcohol,     legislative    control    of, 

277  et  seq.,  295  et  seq. 
Alcoholism,  33,  41 
Allen,  Grant,  394 
Allen,  W.H.,  11 
Ancestry,  the  study  of,  2 
Angell,  Norman,  321 
Anthony,  Susan,  111 
Antimachus  of  Colophon,  117 
Anti-militarism,  328 
Aristotle,  403 
Ashby,  33 
Asnurof,  283 
Aubry,  42 
Augustine,  St.,  5 
Australia,  birth-rate  in,  146  et  seq., 

162  ;   moral  legislation  in,  291 
Azoulay,  188 

Bachofen,  91 
Baines,  Sir  J.  A.,  153 
Barnes,  Earl,  223 
Basedow,  244 
Bateson,  27,  194,  402 
Beatrice,  Dante's,  122 
Beaufront,  L.  de,  372,  373 
Bebel,  71,  88 
Becker,  R.,  118 
Belbdze,  211 


Benecke,  E.  F.  M.,  117 

Bergsonian  philosophy,  31 

Bertillon,  G.,  63 

Bertillon,  J.,  278 

Beveridge,  171 

Bible  in  religious  education,  230, 
240 

Billroth,  353 

Bingham,  274 

Birth-rate,  in  France,  17,  136,  188  ; 
in  England,  17,  137  ;  in 
Germany,  17,  138  ;  in  Russia, 
25  ;  in  United  States,  141  ; 
in  Canada,  144  ;  in  Australasia, 
146,  162;  in  Japan,  155;  in 
China,  156 ;  among  savages, 
167  ;  significance  of  a  falling, 
134  et  seq.  ;  in  relation  to  death- 
rate,  7,  150 

Blease,  W.  Lyon,  70 

Bloch,  Iwan,  93 

Boccaccio,  119,  123 

Bodey,  43,  201 

Bohmert,  138 

Bonhoeffer,  38 

Booth,  C.,  177,  184 

Bosanquet,  18,  383,  394 

Bouche-Leclercq,  306 

Branthwaite,  41 

Braun,  Lily,  139 

Brinton,  351 

Bud  in,  8 


407 


4o8        THE  TASK   OF   SOCIAL  HYGIENE 


Bund  fur  Mutterschutz,  96 
Burckhardt,  123 
Burnham,  221 
Bushee,  F.,  II,  171 
Byington,  393 

Camp,  Maxime  du,  50 
Campanella,  27 
Campbell,  Harry,   179 
Canada,  birth-rate  in,  144  et  seq.  ; 

sexual  hygiene  in,  253 
Cantlie,  179 
Carpenter,  Edward,  397 
Casper,  91 

Certificates,  eugenic,  30,  44,  202 
Chadwick,  Sir  E.,  4,  184 
Chamfort,  256 

Chastity  of  German  women,  88 
Cheetham,  235 
Chicago    Vice    Commission,    277, 

295,  3°° 

Child,  psychology  of,  218 

Children,  religious  education  of, 
217 

China,  birth-rate  in,  156 

Christianity  in  relation  to  roman- 
tic love,  117 

Chivalrous  attitude  towards 
women,   124 

Civilization,  what  it  consists  in, 
18 

Clayton,  180 

Cobbe,  F.  P.,  50 

Co-education,  58 

Coghlan,  T.  A.,  147,  161,  165,  166 

Coinage,  international,  378 

Concubinage,  legalized,  104 

Condorcet,  50,  67 

Confirmation,  rite  of,  236 

Consent,  age  of,  288  et  seq. 

Courts  of  Love,  119 

Couturat,  350,  374 


Creed,  J.  M.,  291 

Criminality    and     feeble-minded- 

ness,  38 
Cruce,  Emeric,  315 

Dante,  122,  132 

Dareste,  387,  396 

Davenport,  35,  36,  44,  198 

Death-rate  in  relation  to  birth- 
rate, 7,  150 

Degenerate  families,  41  et  seq. 

Degeneration  of  race,  alleged,  19 
et  seq.,  37 

De  Quincey,  219 

Descartes,  349 

Dickens,  129 

Dill,  Sir  S.,  305 

Disinfection,  origin  of,  5 

Divorce,  62,  log 

Donkin,  Sir  H.  B.,  39 

Donnan,  374 

Drunkenness,  decrease  of,  18 

Dubois,  P.,  315 

Dugdale,  42 

Dumont,  Arsene,  157,  160,  171 

Economic  aspect  of  woman's 
movement,  52,  63  et  seq. 

Education,  6,  47,  57,  71,  201,  217 
et  seq.,  398 

Ehrenfels,  25 

Eichholz,  36 

Eimer,  387 

Ellis,  Havelock,  15,  31,  40,  44,  49, 
88,  100,  108,  118,  130,  154,  161, 
179,  186,  204,  206,  207,  220, 
244,  259,  369,  394 

Enfantin,  Prosper,  104 

Engelmann,  142,  160,  165 

English,  characteristics  of  the,  2  ; 
attitude    towards    immorality, 


INDEX 


409 


270;  language  for  international 

purposes,  355  et  seq. 
Esperanto,  372 
Espinas,  60 
Eugenics,   12,  26  et  seq,  107,   195 

et  seq.,  399  et  seq. 
Euthenics,   12 
Ewart,  R.  J.,  26,  172 

Factory  legislation,  5 

Fahlbeck,  22 

Fairy  tales  in  education,  239 

Family,  limitation  of,  16,  26 

Family  in  relation  to  degeneracy, 
41 ;  size  of,  35 

Feeble-minded,  problem  of  the, 
31  et  seq. 

Fell,  E.  F.  B.,  383 

Ferrer,  318 

Fertility  in  relation  to  prosperity, 
169  et  seq. 

Fiedler,  229 

Finlay- Johnson,  H.,  227,  242 

Firenzuola,   123 

"  Fit,"  the  term,  44 

Flux,  138 

Forel,  93 

France,  birth-rate  in,  17,  136, 
188  ;  women  and  love  in,  119  ; 
legal  attitude  towards  immor- 
ality in,  265 ;  regulation  of 
alcohol  in,  278 

Franklin,  B.,  142,  327 

Fraser,  Mrs.,  115 

French  language  for  international 
purposes,  364  et  seq. 

Frenssen,  95 

Freud,  S.,  92 

Fuld,  E.  F.,  274,  276 

Furch,  Henriette,  252 

Galton,    Sir   F.,    28,    29,    44,745, 


i°7.    ^5,    I97>    198,    200,    203, 

208,  402 
Gaultier,  J.  de,  342 
Gautier,  Lion,  119 
Gavin,  H.,  184 
Gayley,  Julia,  420 
Germany,    sex    questions    in,    87 

et    seq.;      illegitimacy    in,    97  ; 

sexual    hygiene    in,    94  ;     legal 

attitude  towards  immorality  in, 

265,  301 
Giddings,  46 
Godden,  35,  198 
Godwin,  W.,  309 
Goethe,  128,  131 
Goldscheid,  167,  173 
Gomperz,  403 
Goncourt,  120 
Gouges,  Olympe  de,  68 
Gourmont,  Remy  de,  122,  299,  317 
Gournay,  Marie  de,  no 
Grabowsky,  263 
Grasset,  209 
Griinspan,  97 
Gu&rard,  325,  346,  369 
Guthrie,  L.,  239 

Haddon,  A.  C,   234,  245 

Hagen,  262 

Hale,  Horatio,  351 

Hales,  W.  W.,  260 

Hall,  G.  Stanley,  220,  224,  232,  233, 

303 

Hamburger,  C,  151 

Hamill,  Henry,  213 

Hausmeister,  P.,  302 

Hayllar,  F.,  233 

Health,  nationalization  of,  15 

Health  visitors,  7 

Hearn,  Lajcadio,  191 

Henry,  W.  O.,  252 

Heredity    of     feeble-mindedness, 


4io        THE  TASK   OF   SOCIAL  HYGIENE 


34  ;  as  the  hope  of  the  race,  44  ; 
study  of,  198 

Heron,  19,  166 

Herve,  329 

Hitter,  263,  267 

Hinton,  James,  133 

Hirschfeld,  Magnus,  92,  286 

Hobbes,  313 

Holland,  moral  legislation  in,  291 

Holmes,  Edmond,  227,  228 

Homosexuality  and  the  law,  283, 
286 

Hooker,  N.  A.,  174 

Hughes,  R.  E.,  242 

Humboldt,  W.  von,  6i,  106 

Huneker,  393 

Hungary,  birth-rate  and  death- 
rate  in,  169 

Hutchinson,  Woods,  186 

Hygiene,  in  medieval  and  modern 
times,  5  ;  of  sex,  244  et  seq. 

Idiocy,  32  et  seq. 

Ido,  373 

Illegitimacy,   and   feeble-minded- 

ness,  37  ;   in  Germany,  97 
Imbecility,  32  et  seq. 
Individualism,  3,  381  et  seq. 
Industrialism,  modern,  2 
Inebriety  and  feeble-mindedness, 

Infant  consultations,  8 
Infantile  mortality,  7,  13,  25,  138, 

150  et  seq. 
Initiation  of  youth,  234 
Insurance,  national,  15 
International     language     of     the 

future,  349  et  seq. 

James,  E.  C,  123 

James,  William,  195 

Japan,    romantic    love    in,    115; 


birth-rate  and  death-rate  in, 
155  ;  changed  conditions  in, 
191,  322 

Jenks,  E.,  312,  316 

Johannsen,  152 

Johnson,  Roswell,  207 

Jordan,  D.  S.,  324 

Jorger,  42 

Jukes  family,  41 

Kaan,  91 

Kellerman,  Ivy,  369 

Key,  Ellen,  100  et  seq.,  130,  229, 

394 

Kirkup,  384 
Krafft-Ebing,  92 
Krauss,  F.  S.,  92 
Kuczynski,  142 

Labour  movement  and  war,  329 

La  Chapelle,  E.  P.,  145 

Lacour,  L.,  68 

Lagorgette,  315 

Laissez-faire,  the  maxim  of,  3,  400 

Lancaster,  231 

Language,    international,    349    et 

seq. 
Latin  as  an  international  language, 

354 

Lavelege,  E.  de,  321 

Law,  in  relation  to  eugenics,  30 

45  ;    to  morals,  48  ;    the  sphere 

of,  312 
Lea,  88 
Leau,  350 
Leibnitz,  350 
Levy,  Miriam,  221 
Lewis,  C.  J.  and  J.  N.,  165 
Lichtenstein,  Ulrich  von,  118 
Life- history     albums,     199,     212 

et  seq. 
Lischnewska,  Maria,  248 


INDEX 


411 


Lobsien,  226 

Loomis,  C.  B.,  361 

Lorenz,  21,  373 

Love,  and  the  woman's  question, 

59,     101,     113     et    seq.  ;      and 

eugenics,  203  et  seq. 
Luther,  94,  228,  306 

Mackay,  J.  H.,  393 

Macnamara,  N .  C,  179 

Macquart,   188 

Maine,  prohibition  in,  279 

Mannhardt,  204 

Manouvrier,  86 

Marcuse,  Max,  94 

Marriage,  certificates  for,  30,  44, 

45,   209  ;    economics  and,   61  ; 

natural     selection     and,     204  ; 

State  regulation  of,  61  et  seq.  ; 

the   ideal   of,    101  ;     in   classic 

times,  114 
Marriage-rate,  139,  164,  173 
Matignon,  156 
Matriarchal  theory,  49 
Maurice,  Sir  F.,  180 
McLean,  161 

Meisel-Hess,  Grete,  109,  130 
Meray,  119,  365 
Mercier,  C,  20 
Meredith,  George,  129 
Miele,  9 
Miers,  354 
Milk  Depots,  8 
Mill,  J.  S.,  52,  71 
Moll,  92,  93,  246 
Montaigne,  115 
Montesquieu,  37 
Moore,  B.,  15,  185 
Morals    in    relation    to    law,    48, 

258  et  seq. 
More,  Sir  T.,  29 
Morgan,  L.,  66 


Morse,  J.,  224 

Mortality  of  infants,  7,  13,  25,  138, 

150  et  seq. 
Motherhood  in  relation  to  eugenics, 

46 
Mothers,  schools  for,  9 
Mougins- Roquefort,  312 
Municipal  authorities  to  instruct 

in  limitation  of  offspring,  duty 

of,  26 
Muralt,  2 
Mysteries,    Pagan  and   Christian, 

235 

Ndcke,  186 

Napoleon,  69,  265 

Nars,  L.,  69 

National  Insurance,  15 

Nationalization  of  health,  15 

Natural     selection     and     social 

reform,  13 
Nearing,  Scott,  194 
Neo-Malthusianism,   16,    26,   102, 

159  et  seq. 
Nevinson,  H.  W.,  330 
Newsholme,   7,   19,   137,   166,   172 
New  Zealand,  birth-rate  in,  148 
Nietzsche,  190,  309,  334,  392 
Niphus,  123 

Norway,  infantile  mortality  in,  14 
Notzel,  R.,  394 
Novikov,  324,  330,  342 
Noys,  H.,  29 
Nystrdm,  26 

Obscenity,  255,  304 
Oneida,  29 
Ovid,  114,  132 
Owen,  Robert,  51 

Pankhurst,  Mrs.,  85 
Partridge,  G.  L.,  219 


412 


THE   TASK   OF   SOCIAL   HYGIENE 


Paul,  Eden,  208 

Pearson,  Karl,  198 

Penn,  W.,  341 

Perrycoste,  F.  H.,  212 

Peters,  J.  P.,  293 

Pfaundler,  371 

Pinard,  J.,  252 

Pinloche,  244 

Plate,  185 

Ploetz,  210 

Ploss,  167,  176 

Police  systems,  274 

Post  Office,  inquisition  at  the,  276 

Prohibition  of  alcohol  in  Maine, 
279 

Prosperity  in  relation  to  fertility, 
169  et  seq. 

Prostitution,  and  feeble-minded- 
ness,  38  ;  and  sexual  selection, 
60 ;  varying  legal  attitude  to- 
wards, 285,  296 

Puberty,  psychic  influence  of, 
231  et  seq. 

Puericulture,  7 

Quakers,  270 
Quarantine,  origin  of,  5 

Race,  alleged  degeneration  of, 
19  et  seq.,  37 

Raines  Law  hotels,  293  et  seq. 

Ramsay,  Sir  W.  M.,  305 

Ranke,  Karl,  169 

Raschke,  Marie,  99 

Reform,  Social  hygiene  as  dis- 
tinct from  sexual,  1 ;  four  stages 
of  social,  4  et  seq. 

Reibmayr,  22 

Religion,  and  eugenics,  208  ;  and 
the  child,  217  et  seq. 

Reproduction,  control  of,  17 

Richards,  Ellen,  12 


Richardson,  Sir  B.  W.,  65 
Robert,  P.,  340 
Roberts,  A.  M.,  369,  370 
Roman     Catholics     and     Neo- 

Malthusianism,  161 
Roseville,  173 
Ross,  E.  A.,  156 
Rousseau,  229 
Rubin,  153,  166 
Ruediger,  232 

Rural  life,  influence  of,  177  et  seq. 
Russell,  Mrs.  B.,  9 
Russia,  infantile  mortality  in,  14, 

154,  168  ;    moral  legislation  in, 

282 
Ryle,  R.  J.,  33 

Sacraments,    origin   of   Christian, 

235 

Saint- Pierre,  Abbe  de,  339 

Saint-Simon,  51,  104, 

St.  Valentine  and  eugenics,  203 

Sand,  George,  50,  105 

Sanitation     as     an     element     of 

social  reform,  4 
Saussure,  R.  de,  380 
Sayer,  E.,  35 
Schallmayer,  200 
Schiff,  M.,  no 
Schleyer,  352 
Schooling,  J.  H.,  174 
Schools  for  mothers,  9 
Schrader,  O.,  88 
Schreiner,  Olive,  130,  330 
Schroeder,  T.,  255,  304 
Science  and  social  reform,  n 
Sellers,  E.,  266,  301 
Sex    questions    in    Germany,    87 

et  seq. 
Sexual  hygiene,  244  et  seq.,  309 
Sexual  selection,  59,  203  et  seq. 
Shaftesbury,  Earl  of,  6 


INDEX 


413 


Sherwell,  A.,  280 

Shrank,  J.,  285 

SUgler-Pascal,  339 

Sitwell,  Sir  G.,  327 

Smith,  Sir  T.,  120 

Smith,  T.  P.,  180 

Social    reform    as    distinct    from 

social    hygiene,    1  ;     its     four 

stages,  4  et  seq. 
Socialism,  18,  208,  381  et  seq. 
Society  of  the  future,  55 
Sollier,  354 
Solmi,  28 
Sombart,  138 
Spain,    legalized   concubinage  in, 

104  ;    women  in,  129 
Spanish      as      an      international 

language,  353 
Stanton,  E.  C,  85 
Starbuck,  232 
Steinmetz,  312,  331 
Steele,  27 

Sterilization,  30,  44,  46 
Sterility  and  the  birth-rate,   164 
Stevenson,  19 
Stewart,  A.,  237 
Stewart,  R.  S.,  182 
Stirner,  Max,  393 
Stirpiculture,  29 
Stacker,  H.,  96 
Streitberg,  Countess  von,  99 
Suffrage,   woman's,   50,   57,   71  et 

seq. 
Sully,  315,  340 
Sun,  City  of  the,  27 
Sutherland,  A.,  312 
Sykes,  9 

Syndicalism,  329 
Syphilis,  32 

Taine,  128,  313 
Takano,  155 


Tarde,  132,  307 

Thompson,  W.,  51 

Toulouse,  45,  186 

Tramps    and    feeble-mindedness, 

Tredgold,  34 

United  States,  birth-rate  in,   140 

et  seq. ;   sexual  hygiene  in,  254  ; 

attitude  towards  immorality  in, 

273  et  seq. 
Urban    life,    intluence   of,    177   et 

seq. 

Vasectomy,  31 

Venereal  disease  and  sexual  hy- 
giene, 254 
Vesnitch,  315 
Vineland,  34 
Volapiik,  352 

Wagenen,  W.  F.  van,  378 

War  against  war,  311  et  seq. 

Ward,  Mrs.  Humphry,  76 

Weale,  B.  L.  Putnam,  157 

Weatherby,  157 

Webb,  Sidney,  156,  163 

Weeks,  35,  36 

Weinberg,  S.,  99 

Wentworth,  S.,  173 

W  ester  gaard,  166 

Westermarck,  559 

Weuleresse,  400 

Wheeler,  Mrs.,  52 

White  slave  trade,  288 

Whetham,     W.    C.   D.    and    Mrs., 

199 
Whitman,  Walt,  66,  403 
Wilcox,  W.  F.,  141 
Wilde,  O.,  394 
Wilhelm,  C,  266 


4i4        THE  TASK   OF   SOCIAL   HYGIENE 


Wollstonecraft,  Mary,  50,  69,  70, 
in 

Woman,  and  eugenics,  46  ;  move- 
ment, 49  et  seq.;  economics,  63 
et  seq.;  eighteenth  century,  69, 
128  ;  and  the  suffrage,  50,  57 
ji  et  seq.;  of  the  Italian  Re- 
naissance,    123  ;      in     Spanish 


literature, 
330 


129 ;        and     war, 


Yule,  G.  Udny,  139,  174 

Zamenhof,  372 
Zero  family,  42 
Ziller,  240 


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PRINTERS,    PLYMOUTH 


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